Tobacco Control

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What consultations they will hold with relevant governments and the World Health Organisation on the levels of advertisement for, and sale of, cigarettes in Asia and the Far East.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, there are no plans for direct consultation, but that is because the framework convention on tobacco control—a World Health Organisation treaty which came into effect in February—is the most appropriate mechanism for controlling tobacco use across the globe. The treaty includes provisions on tobacco advertising and price control. Many Asian nations have already ratified the treaty and we encourage others to follow.

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that informative Answer. In the light of the report on the nature of the new advertising campaigns which the nicotine corporations are about to put forth with the aim of maintaining their profits in India and the Far East, especially by targeting women and, according to some alarming reports, children, does she think that on this glorious day when the Companies Bill has finally been published, a member of the Government might have a word in the ear of the cigarette companies about social responsibility in relation to smoking? Perhaps my noble friend could even have a word in the ear of the British American Tobacco company, with which distinguished public figures are so closely associated.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I thank my noble friend—or, as he might say, my noble comrade—for that question. The marketing initiatives and tactics of tobacco companies are, indeed, abhorrent for everyone, but especially when it comes to targeting women and children. They are desperate to find new markets for their lethal products. I hope very much that tobacco companies take their responsibilities diligently when it comes to social progress and social reform. However, the Government believe that the best way to counter such marketing is to have a comprehensive ban on advertising. That is precisely what the framework convention should—and, we hope, will—bring about.

Lord Chan: My Lords, as the largest area in the world where advertising takes place is probably in China, and as President Hu will be here next week, will Her Majesty's Government, through the Minister, suggest that their Government adopt some of our good practices regarding the advertising of tobacco products, including the need not to influence younger people, particularly younger women, in relation to smoking?

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I am sure that my colleagues in the Government who meet their Chinese counterparts will be discussing such issues. However, I am glad to say that China is one of the 89 countries that have ratified the framework convention. Of course, ratifying a convention and implementing legislation are two very different things, but that is the first sign that China has the political will to do something about tobacco smoking.

Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, does the Minister realise that older women also smoke occasionally? Do the mandarins in Brussels still pay money to Greece to grow tobacco?

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I am aware of the regrettable fact that some older women smoke, foolish although it may be. I believe that there are still subsidies for tobacco, but they are being phased out as an attempt is made to rebalance the common agricultural policy.

Baroness Neuberger: My Lords, given that we all agree that banning the advertising of tobacco would be a very good thing, what will the noble Baroness and the UK, as holder of the presidency, do to ensure that the eight states in the EU that are not complying ban advertising?

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I am sure that my colleagues will have very vigorous discussions with their counterparts in those member states to ensure that they ban advertising. An EU directive came into force on 31 July that requires them to ban it.

Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that hundreds of confidential documents have been unearthed by litigation in the United States which reveal that British American Tobacco—the company to which my noble friend referred—has been complicit in the smuggling of cigarettes in the Far East, making use of criminal gangs and ensuring that their products find their way back to Europe? Can no action at all be taken in this country against what is a British company?

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I do not know what action can be taken about that company but I shall seek to find out. I am sure that whatever can be done will be done. However, that takes us on to the issue of smuggling, which is a global problem. The framework convention on tobacco control will also help to reduce that problem. The UK is pressing for a specific protocol under the convention on the problem of smuggling.

The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, given the importance of young women in the market we are discussing, is the Minister not concerned about the effect of smoking during pregnancy, including low birth weights, and the developing evidence that smoking during pregnancy increases the prevalence of early-onset type 2 diabetes in the children from those births?

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, the Government are well aware of the terrible effects of smoking during pregnancy. Everything is being done to educate young women, especially those who are likely to become pregnant or are pregnant, about the adverse effects of smoking on themselves and their babies and, therefore, our future generations.

Flags

Lord Harrison: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What benefits they expect from the proposed reform of the law concerning the flying of national and non-national flags from public buildings, particularly with regard to the tourism industry and the twinning of towns.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, the only change to the law that we have proposed is a deregulatory measure which will allow all national flags and the European Union flag to be flown from any flagstaff without having to apply for permission from the council. That will bring greater clarity to the regulations for people who want to promote support for the EU and Britain and other countries, which could benefit the tourist industry.

Lord Harrison: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for her Answer. Given that towns such as mine—Chester—proudly fly the flag of the European Union, the USA, the Commonwealth and our next-door neighbour Wales to welcome visitors and tourists and to cement those friendships, I ask my noble friend to note that her reply is most welcome to clarify the law. Is she aware of the disgraceful campaign waged by some unthinking Euro-sceptics who try to remove the European Union flag from local council buildings in the north and even from the European Parliament building at Queen Anne's Gate in London?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, my noble friend is certainly right. The law on flag flying is very complicated and more complicated than I had believed. I am sure noble Lords will not be surprised to hear that. I am pleased to hear that my noble friend is flying the Welsh flag along with all the other national flags as that can certainly be done at the discretion of the local council. I very much welcome what he said about the EU flag. Our new proposals mean that there will be no repeat of the recent events in Westminster and the Weir Valley where UKIP drew attention to the fact that EU flags have been flown without the consent of the local authority. In future, the EU flag will not require express consent to be flown. During our UK presidency, that is an excellent development.

Lord Waddington: My Lords, as Article 1.8 of the European constitution provides for a European Union flag with 12 stars on a blue background and as the constitution is defunct or in limbo, does that mean that the flag is defunct or in limbo? Does it have any legal status? Is it not right that when it comes to planning permission, the EU flag has the same status as the skull and crossbones, which some might think appropriate? As the EU is not, thank goodness, a nation, would it not be intolerable if we were to give this flag the same status as our national flags?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, the EU flag is as legal as it ever was. The convention restated many existing laws. There is a difference between the skull and crossbones and the European flag. If the noble Lord wants to fly the skull and crossbones flag from his turrets or battlements, he will have to obtain permission from the local authority. That will no longer apply to the EU flag.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the flying of flags is essentially an emotive and emotional issue, whether we use them for celebration, commemoration, identification or fly them at half mast? Noble Lords will remember the upset when Buckingham Palace took several days to fly the flag at half mast after the death of Princess Diana. Does the Minister agree that given this emotional background, a raft of planning law is inappropriate and that it should be left to local choice? If we are to have a bonfire of regulation, perhaps we can start with those controlling the flying of flags.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, yes, I agree that express consent is necessary for the flying of a whole range of flags, including many flags which she has described as being emotive. I am thinking of the way in which other political parties have flown particular kinds of flags. Indeed, that must remain within the control of the local authority. The rules governing the flying of flags at half mast are different and I will not go into them because they are complicated. However, I will certainly write to the noble Baroness if she is interested.

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, has the Minister come under any pressure from the EU to make the change to allow the flying of the European flag? I recall that when I was Secretary of State for Scotland I came under pressure to do so. Is this not further evidence that some people in Brussels have an agenda to create a country called "Europe"?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, as far as I am aware, we have come under no pressure. We are consulting on the decision and we will make regulations in effect in April. I believe that it is a positive step. As a member of the European Union, we should be proud to establish that fact without having to go through complicated procedures to fly the flag.

Lord Kilclooney: My Lords, following the Government's decision to ban the flying of the Union flag from most public buildings in Northern Ireland, does the new law mean that we can now fly any national flag other than the Union flag?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, my understanding is that it has always been possible to fly any national flag from any part of the United Kingdom. If I am wrong about that, I will certainly write to the noble Lord.

Lord Dykes: My Lords, can the Government and the whole House join together in helping the Tories overcome their terror of a European flag? Will the Minister be shocked to learn that only a few years ago at the County Hall in Oxfordshire some Tory councillors asked to be given the oldest and tattiest Union flag for photographic purposes—perhaps just reminiscing about the past—and that when it was photographed they ran a story in the local press saying, "Isn't it appalling that we've got this tatty old Union Jack instead of the European flag which is also flying on the county hall flag post?"? The keepers at County Hall in that case were very annoyed about it because they had a brand new Union flag in the cupboard ready for display. Will the Minister investigate that case?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I cannot investigate that case, but I am sure that as a result of our European presidency some very nice brand new flags will be available for anyone who wants to fly them.

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that many people have aesthetic problems with this particular flag, which those who design flags feel rather strongly about?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, there are aesthetic problems with many flags, but I will not specify. I find the flag of Wales, with that marvellous dragon, by far the best. It sets a very high standard in design and commitment.

Lord Greaves: My Lords, is it not the case that flying flags is excellent, provided that there are lots of flags indicating the diversity of today's world and the number of different communities in which we live? Does the Minister agree that others should follow the example of Colne in Lancashire—and Chester, which was referred to the by noble Lord, Lord Harrison—which flies the Lancashire flag, the English flag, the Union flag and the European flag? When we did this, we were told that the European flag would be desecrated. The only flag that ever gets desecrated is the Union flag by football hooligans on a Saturday night.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I am interested to hear that. The noble Lord may like to know that the other change proposed in the new regulations is that flags no longer have to be flown on vertical flagpoles. Flagpoles can now be at any angle. I leave the rest to noble Lords' imagination.

Police Shootings

Lord Berkeley: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Under what circumstances a Metropolitan Police officer is authorised to shoot to kill.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, all police use of firearms is subject to the usual law on the use of force. Any decision to use firearms must be justifiable according to the circumstances of the case—if necessary, before a court. Police operations involving firearms will be intended in appropriate circumstances to bring an end to an imminent threat to life or of serious injury. Tactics will be aimed at ensuring that that is done quickly and with certainty. If a firearm is discharged, death may result, but that is not the objective.

Lord Berkeley: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that helpful response. Presumably, she would agree that shooting to kill by the police should be used only in response to the most extreme threats. Does she further agree that the two most recent cases—that of the man with the chair leg who was shot and the Brazilian man who was shot in the Underground—do not fall into that category? Will she consider suspending all permissions to shoot to kill until the Government have introduced new regulations to Parliament concerning for whom and in what circumstances that policy should be followed?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I certainly agree with my noble friend that an extreme threat must be present. I cannot comment on either the case involving the man with the chair leg or that of the Brazilian man. Noble Lords will know that those issues are under investigation. Such decisions are a matter of operational tactics, which are a matter for the police. We do not think it appropriate to change that.

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, does Operation Kratos by the Metropolitan Police represent a shoot-to-kill policy? Is not the essential element of policing in this country its independence and public consent? Will she ensure that before such a policy is established, the approval of Parliament is obtained?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, we would not describe Operation Kratos as a shoot-to-kill policy. Noble Lords will know that, as I said, operational tactics are a matter for the police. We would not expect Ministers to be involved in those operational decisions, nor would we expect Parliament to have to decide on each operation whether changes are necessary. In general terms, Parliament has already spoken. The Criminal Law Act 1967 provides that the police may use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances to effect an arrest or to prevent crime. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 also provides for the use of force when necessary in exercising any of the powers provided under the Act. Those laws maintain the position and are right.

Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, what assessment has been made of the merits of non-lethal force, such as Taser guns, in dealing with cases such as suicide bombers?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I understand that the difficulty with Taser guns is that, if used, the electrical force that comes from the gun affects the body but may not be able to stop the detonation of the bomb that the person may be carrying. I understand that that is why, operationally, the police have not chosen to use the Taser. I emphasise that lethal force will be used only in very exceptional operational circumstances where no other course appears to be merited to preserve the safety of the individual and those in the surroundings.

Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate: My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that, unlike those in the armed services, a police officer cannot be ordered to use a firearm—to shoot—and that the decision is a personal one for the officer concerned for which he or she will be answerable to the law?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, each officer is answerable. Officers who use force at whatever level must be able to justify it, if necessary, before a court, which is the proper place to examine whether the choice made was appropriate and reasonable. Those are very difficult, sensitive issues. Operationally it is sometimes particularly difficult to make those judgments.

Lord Marlesford: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the phrase "shoot to kill" is very unhelpful? The fact is that a firearm is a lethal weapon, and in the extreme and usually stressful conditions in which it is used, death can well result. When one needs to use a firearm, it is very unwise to shoot to incapacitate, possibly failing to incapacitate or hitting somebody else.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very important point. Firearms are always lethal weapons. Those using them, either as a perpetrator or protecting others, need to do so very judiciously, and, as the noble Lord accurately explained, that is very difficult.

Lord Marsh: My Lords, does the Minister not agree that John Wayne has a lot to answer for, and that shooting people through the left kneecap is frequently more difficult than it seems?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I could not possibly comment.

Earl Ferrers: My Lords, does the Minister agree that there is little point in having policemen carrying arms if they are never allowed to use them and if, when they do, there is always a row?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I certainly agree with the noble Earl that it has regrettably been necessary for some police officers to carry firearms. They do that on our behalf to keep us safe, at great personal risk. It would be good if we could honour them for so doing.

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, I am sure that the whole House would sympathise with any individual who found himself with such a dreadful responsibility as has a policeman with a firearm in a critical situation. But one of the events to which the noble Baroness referred revealed an operational problem that requires attention: when police officers go underground they lose communication with surface control, so if the situation on the surface changes and information comes through, it cannot be communicated to them. What steps are being taken to overcome that difficulty?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, noble Lords will know that those issues are being looked at, first, to ascertain whether that is correct, and, secondly, if it is—it is not admitted—how to address it. All necessary steps will be taken so that lessons are learnt and the safety and security of our country is better protected in future.

House Sales: Home Packs

Baroness Hanham: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	When the detailed commentary to accompany the draft regulations on home packs, which were published on 31 October, will be available.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, guidance on the draft regulations is being prepared. It will be available on the ODPM website early next week.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer, which I am sure will benefit those attempting to answer the consultation. Is she satisfied that the timescale for both the consultation and the process of the regulations will enable her department to implement its undertaking, given during the passage of the Housing Bill, that the home condition reports would not be implemented until sufficient surveyors were trained to undertake them?

Baroness Andrews: Yes, my Lords, I am content. All the stakeholders are being consulted on the draft regulations, and we are discussing the timetable for the regulations with them as part of that process. We still aim to have full implementation in early 2007. We feel on track in recruiting the required number of home inspectors—1,500 are already in training, and we look forward to welcoming more to this very new, important profession.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market: My Lords, will the Minister say more about how the Government propose to increase the number of surveyors from the current 1,500 to the 7,000 that it is estimated will be required when home condition surveys come on stream? The training course lasts between one and two years, so I am sure that noble Lords would appreciate hearing from the Minister what steps are being taken now to ensure that there will be a sufficient number.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I am very happy to answer that question. Home inspectors will be recruited from across a wide range of professions. Many will be chartered surveyors and, therefore, their training period will be shorter. Many home inspectors will come from other parts of the industry. The training will be flexible and modular; they can bring their experience to bear. Many of them will start from scratch and will require the longer period of training.
	The training will be a diploma, which has been approved by the QCA. It will have a very solid curriculum and will be an attractive proposition. As I have said, we have 1,500 people in the pipeline already. We do not think that there will be a problem recruiting for something that will be to the benefit of buyers and sellers across the country.

Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, does this proposal come from the Deputy Prime Minister? It has all of his delicacy of touch about it. Will arrangements be made—by whom and what will they be?—to certify that the contents of the packs are in any way accurate or reliable?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has done the country a great service by changing a system which has caused so much waste to the individual who is buying and selling, and to the industry to the tune of £350 million each year. It has been hard to defend. There will be nothing new in the contents of the pack—much of it is done already. But we will have a more consistent basis for home inspection, which will be more reliable. There will be an energy efficiency element, which will be extremely useful to save costs in the future. It will be of great benefit.

The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the noble Baroness said that there was nothing new in the pack. But does she agree that the home condition report is totally new? We will be the only country in the world to insist on a home condition report. I can assure the noble Baroness that I know many surveyors, some of whom are undertaking the surveyor's course, who do not consider such reports to be worthy of the title of a surveyor's report, which, in due course, will be attached to the home pack.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, much of the information in the home condition report would have been collected for the home buyer's survey. The home condition report will be the sort of mid-level survey which the home buyer's report provided. But it will be available to everyone. Currently, 70 per cent of people do not have a survey. To have such reports can be only an improvement. Knowing the state of a house before you enter into negotiations, the liabilities and the legal status will give people security and certainty where there is none at the moment, so it will be an improvement.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, in answering the Question, the Minister said that the Government hope to bring this vast scheme into effect at the beginning of 2007. How can that be possible while honouring the very trenchant undertaking given by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who was the Minister during the passage of the Bill? That undertaking was in response to an amendment that I put down on Report, which would have put into the Bill the requirement for a dry run or widespread pilot scheme to be undertaken. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, convinced me—I know that he is totally genuine—that the Government were determined to have such a dry run. How can that be undertaken, given that it is not yet even on the stocks? In order to evaluate it properly and objectively, and to learn the lessons, there is no conceivable way in which that undertaking can be met and the whole scheme can be brought in in early 2007.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I assure the noble Lord that we are working extremely closely, as we have throughout this whole process, with everyone who has a stake in making this work and that obviously includes the industry. The regulations and guidance are assisting that process. We will be in contact with them throughout the whole process. It is very firmly our intention that six months before the scheme will be implemented, with all the elements in place, we will have a dry run to test how it works in practice and to ensure that we have the industry with us, and that all the instruments are fit for purpose. I hope that the noble Lord will hold us to that account, because that is our intention.

Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, will these packs be acceptable to mortgage companies?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, yes. We are in close contact with the Council of Mortgage Lenders. We have been working with the council, as we have with all the other parties. It knows exactly what is in the pack and finds it acceptable. We have every expectation that mortgage lenders will use the packs as the basis for valuations.

Baroness Byford: My Lords, for how long will these packs be valid? Is the noble Baroness not fearful that the scheme will incur extra costs for people wishing to sell their houses in the first place?

Baroness Andrews: No, my Lords, there will be a fairer distribution of the costs. The seller will pay more but the buyer will in fact pay less. Indeed, even the Times conceded that in its report earlier this week. While some elements of the packs will become out of date, we are confident that those who will be administering them will make arrangements to ensure that the relevant updating can be provided. However, by no means will all the elements of the pack require it.

Business of the House: Debates this Day

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Lord President of the Council, I beg to move the Motion standing in her name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the debate on the Motion in the name of the Lord Bhattacharyya set down for today shall be limited to two hours and that in the name of the Lord Puttnam to three and a half hours.—(Lord Davies of Oldham.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Commissioner for Older People (Wales) Bill [HL]

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order:
	Clause 1,
	Schedule 1,
	Clauses 2 and 3,
	Schedule 2,
	Clauses 4 to 6,
	Schedule 3,
	Clauses 7 to 21,
	Schedule 4,
	Clauses 22 to 29.—(Lord Evans of Temple Guiting.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Science and Technology

Lord Bhattacharyya: rose to call attention to the contribution of science and technology to the United Kingdom economy; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, this debate on the importance of science, engineering and technology could not be more timely. A day does not pass without science being drawn into some controversy in the press, from climate change to stem cells, avian flu to ID cards, animal testing to nuclear power. While these subjects are certainly controversial, the science very rarely is. For many years, our governments have benefited from excellent scientific advice from a stream of very good scientific advisers. It is good to see that one of them, the noble Lord, Lord May of Oxford, is here today.
	Our future has never been so closely linked to the quality of our science, engineering and technology. This is not a new debate. My party has been committed to science, engineering and technology from its inception. Well before Harold Wilson's "white heat of technology", we were committed to science. Science has played and continues to play a huge part in liberating the people of Britain from Beveridge's Five Giants—want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. Speaking of giants, one of the giants of the 1945 Labour Government said that in Britain, original discoveries are made which are not followed up in the practical field. He went on to recommend that:
	"A closer relationship should be established between the potential users of the results of research and research itself. The practical and the theoretical are two aspects of the same activity. Their separation is a hangover from the days of cloistered learning".
	That was Nye Bevan from In Place of Fear. Sadly, in 1951 he was out of office and did not live to see a Labour government committed to those ideals.
	A great deal has happened since that split in public policy between the practical and the theoretical was identified. I do not think that it was resolved until quite recently. Science will always be the most romantic and exciting part of the science, engineering and technology spectrum. The pursuit of Nobel prizes, the hope of discovering completely new things and exploring new worlds means that science has a natural kudos. Britain can be proud of its performance in science. In most areas, UK science is truly world class. In the Royal Society we have the world's pre-eminent scientific society. We are honoured to have so many eminent scientists as Members of this House, including both the present and future Presidents of the Royal Society.
	Britain is second only to the US in the volume and influence of its scientific publications, bearing in mind that we are a quarter of the size of the US, and in the winning of international science prizes. By any measure, our record in science is outstanding. However, we have to remember that it is usually engineering and technology that create the wealth. Thankfully, science, engineering and technology policy transcends party politics. It was a Conservative Government who gave us our current strategy. The White Paper, Realising our Potential, was launched in 1993 by William Waldegrave—now, the noble Lord, Lord Waldegrave. With echoes of Bevan, its purpose was:
	"To harness the strength of science and engineering to the creation of wealth in the UK by bringing it into closer, more systematic, contact with those responsible for industrial and commercial decisions".
	When we launched our science policy in 2000, we did not change the general thrust of the 1993 policy. However, there is a key difference between then and now—and that is that this Government have been prepared to put some cash behind the policy so that it can be implemented. We are in a golden age of research. A great deal of the credit for that must go to my noble friend Lord Sainsbury, who has been the champion of science in government, with passion and skill, since 1998. I wonder whether he realises how greatly he is admired in the world of science.
	Government spending on R&D was falling at the beginning of the 1990s. We have seen an increase in spending of £2.5 billion a year between 1998–99 and 2002–03. Thanks to a dedicated stream of capital funding worth some £500 million a year by 2004–05, and substantial new resources for the research councils, today most university laboratories no longer look like museums. Although the increase in student fees has been controversial, I support it. The amount of money that will be available to universities—if they spend it wisely on resources—is very welcome.
	While this is a substantial increase in funding, the challenge of being world class is very demanding and the resource cannot be spread too thinly. Clearly new money is very welcome but, as budgets get tighter, it is important for future Chancellors to realise that we are in a long-term business. The current Chancellor appreciates the importance of science and technology in generating economic growth. He has taken steps to reduce the cost of business R&D, through the tax system and increased public spending on R&D. Our private sector R&D has not improved at all in a decade. To some extent, our quality of public sector funding has hidden the general weakness in our private sector.
	I recently went to look at the fruits of some of this new spending at Diamond, a major new facility jointly funded by the Government and the Wellcome Trust, near Oxford. At a capital cost of £380 million, it is the largest research facility to be built in the UK for more than 30 years, a clear demonstration of the Government's commitment to our science base. Diamond produces X-rays many billions of times more brilliant than those from a hospital X-ray machine. This Diamond is seriously bright. These X-rays enable us to probe the internal structure of matter in considerable detail. This capability is of immense value to academic research and to industry; for example, a 3D image of a virus is the key to discovering new pharmaceuticals to combat it.
	As an engineer, I like to see good engineering: 35,000 cubic metres of concrete and 2,000 tonnes of steel and the key engineering components are built to a precision less than the thickness of a human hair—that is serious engineering.
	People do not realise that Diamond is pushing the boundaries of advanced engineering, and yet it is on time and within budget. Civil engineering on this scale and with this degree of technical achievement is something to be marvelled at. The public expect the things that engineers do to work. The press loves stories about bridges that wobble and buildings that run massively over budget, but Diamond is just where it should be.
	The UK has developed a very strong position in the exciting new fields of molecular biology and genetics, where Diamond will make a major impact. The Sanger Institute played a remarkable role in the human genome project which is now leading to significant new technologies. The UK's enlightened position on regulatory controls and ethical issues has also been very important. It provides public reassurance while not restricting the creativity of the scientist. The scientists in this case deserve praise for taking the public with them in this area of research.
	It is not an easy balancing act when we are exploring such potentially controversial fields as gene replacement therapies. Too often, there is a breakdown between scientists and the public. New knowledge can be over-hyped, and the public lose confidence in the scientific community. As home to several pharmaceutical companies, the UK is well placed to build on the new genetic revolution and to turn it into profitable new products. Pharmaceuticals are one area where knowledge transfer from science to products is less fuzzy than in engineering. There is a linear process from the laboratory to the market. We can see a direct return from our investments in the science base; this has been one of the UK's success stories.
	In contrast, in my speciality of the design and development of automotive products, the process is very complex. A modern car consists of 25,000 different elements, each one pushing the limits of our knowledge—from lubricants to lightweight materials, from electronics to sophisticated computational fluid dynamics. No wonder improvements are incremental; it requires a broad range of skills, calling on many academic disciplines. Even if these skills are present, without the right cost base and the aesthetic "wow" factor, you will still not be competitive. In my sector, we have not been very successful in bringing these technology skills together in this country. This has been a major weakness, and still needs to be tackled.
	I have been thinking about the improvement in the English cricket team and wondering whether it is due to global warming. While I welcome the improvements in our batting and bowling and the longer, drier summers so important to cricket, I fear the other consequences of global warming—the rising sea levels and the extra volatility in our weather patterns. That will certainly pose research challenges for how we adapt to these new conditions, as well as making life more difficult for weather forecasters. Scientists such as those in the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research are exposing the extent and reality of global warming. If we are to reduce carbon emissions, there will be an important role for science, engineering and technology in meeting the challenge. We have to address our future sustainable energy requirements and the Government have to face major decisions on energy policy.
	The research community is already rising to the energy challenge. Only this week, the research councils and the DTI launched a major energy research programme. New ideas for energy supply are only part of the equation. Intelligent regulations can be a great spur to R&D. It is unlikely that car makers would have introduced catalytic converters to clean up car exhausts without emission controls. Nor would we have more fuel-efficient engines. Many advances have been made because manufacturers have had to meet new standards. We should not allow the idea that all red tape and regulation is a bad thing. Often regulation comes about because of advances in science. Those who speak for industry in these matters sometimes sound like Victorian mill owners. Do firms really want to kill people with asbestos or have a return to the London smog? There is no getting away from the fact that research is global.
	Earlier this year I had the tremendous honour to return to my alma mater, the Indian Institute of Technology at Kharagpur, to receive one of the golden jubilee alumnus awards. What a transformation. When I graduated all those years ago, 80 per cent of my cohort left the country, the vast majority going to the US. The US is not complaining. Huge chunks of today's high-tech industrial sector are dominated by Indians. However, the new India is experiencing an influx of returnees. Back in India, the situation today could not be more different. The IIT Kharagpur is ranked third in the world for technology universities. Catalysed by massive funding from global businesses, their facilities would be the envy of any British university. When the likes of GE, Intel and IBM decide to invest significant sums in R&D in India, you know that something is happening.
	On my regular business trips to Asia, I have seen the developments in India, China, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore—new centres of world-class research. Some may be small, but they are growing fast. The ending of the Cold War has seen a huge acceleration of international technology transfer. The licensing of products and acquisition of technology are the stepping stones to economic development. With political, economic and fiscal stability, rapid growth follows.
	For successful technology transfer and economic growth, skill is imperative—hence the huge amount of spending on education by these countries. China alone graduates in excess of 600,000 scientists and engineers every year. Many in the West have only ever seen Asia as a low-cost centre—that has never been the ambition of Asians. Who would have thought that the Asian countries would rise so rapidly among the leaders in stem cell research? In the 1980s, I visited the Chinese space research design and manufacturing labs. Even then, the level of technology was astounding. Many of these countries have been able to leap-frog the processes of technical development which we had to pass through. I have a couple of examples of that from my own experience. Tata Industries in India decided that it wanted to develop an indigenous motor car. It is a huge firm and excellent in all that it does. The Indica was developed from an idea to a saleable product in just two years and has been a success in a highly competitive automotive market—thanks to the ambition of a single man, Ratam Tata, who was then the chairman.
	The lesson for Britain and the reason why these countries are moving so fast is that they have an enormously important skill base. That is why we need more technologically literate managers with a skill base in science, engineering and technology, not just in financial engineering. Our best universities are quite capable of producing people with the required skills to make this happen. After all, one of the outputs of research is well trained manpower. Our industries need to recognise and utilise this.
	When I first went to look at Shanghai, it was a lovely place to visit as a tourist, but economically there was hardly anything there. Today, my group has a research and education centre at Suzhou and it is one of the worlds's hottest technology regions. You can hardly move there without bumping into an R&D lab or a high technology manufacturing plant. It is almost as if someone has picked up the Cambridge Science Park, along with large chunks of Silicon Valley and slapped them down in China.
	Mention of the Cambridge Science Park brings me back to another important aspect of research in the UK, and an area where we have seen significant changes in recent years. Many are now keen to set up their own businesses. Some have had notable success. If there is a difficulty in the innovation chain in the UK it is in convincing sceptical businesses to run with new ideas. That is where we need to spend some money.
	We in this country have done extremely well. The modern mobile phone, which we use every day, comes entirely out of Britain. The liquid crystal display comes from the Royal Signals and Radar Research Establishment. The detector technology comes from astronomy and has re-emerged in the cameras in our phones which were originally from University College London. The design and manufacture of the nipple antennas which replaced the eye-threatening extendable aerials comes from Sarantel in Northampton and the electronic design software behind the huge amount of intelligence now embedded in a cell phone comes from ARM in Cambridge. The phones themselves may be manufactured largely in the Far East, but the largest mobile phone company is in this country—Vodafone.
	So I want to end by saying a couple of things. We are a hub of research and technology acquisition and transfer, yet we reside in the extreme end of the science, engineering and technology spectrum. Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College and University College London, to name a few, are great universities; they are right at the top end of the world leagues of university rankings in research. They are tremendous centres of excellence and economic drivers. British science is world class. My noble friend Lord May, when he was the Chief Scientific Adviser, commissioned the report that talked about value for money in science spending—and the UK came out on top. If the rest of the economy was as productive, we would not have a productivity problem. I beg to move for Papers.

Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior: My Lords, the House should be very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya, for bringing this topic for debate. It goes without saying that a healthy science and technology sector is vital for the advancement of the economy of any country. This debate asks the question whether Britain is well placed to accomplish that in the modern day—and I regret to say that I am not as sanguine about the answer as the noble Lord is.
	I shall address three questions in this debate. First, does the proportion of the national income spend on research and development compare with that of other competitor countries? Secondly, do we adequately recognise our research and development personnel compared with other countries, especially those in universities? Thirdly, and slightly away from the major question, how does United Kingdom research and development impact on the global village?
	First, with some countries, such as China and India, it is not easy to get a figure for how large a proportion of national income is spent on research and development. In addition, the cheap labour situation in some countries makes it difficult to compare. But it is vital to our own economy that research and development matches that of some of those countries. Some five years ago, I had the privilege of leading a Department of Trade and Industry mission to China to assess biotechnology development in that country. Our conclusion at that time was that there was much "me too" development going on, but we recognised that very shortly China would be equivalent to, if not in the lead of, some western countries, including our own. And so it has been—and we all know how many electronic devices, items of clothing, cosmetics, medicines, vaccines and so on bear the label "Made in China". That has resulted from a massive commitment on the part of the Chinese to research and development.
	What should be the target of research and development spend as part of the economic advancement looked for by the Chancellor? The noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, gave a target of 2.5 per cent of the national income to be reached in 2014—but are we placing ourselves in jeopardy by waiting that long? We should take care that we do not place ourselves in such jeopardy. Figures given nationally find that the United Kingdom lags behind the European Union average, and our own 1.86 per cent spend of national income has remained static for the past decade. Similarly, business spending has remained at 1.25 per cent.
	The Department of Trade and Industry's research and development scorecard, a detailed international analysis of corporate spending, indicates that Britain is in fact falling behind. We are at present strong in research and development in the pharmaceutical field, but can we feel confident that this will continue? How many small and medium companies have moved elsewhere from the United Kingdom because of, for example, harassment by animal rights activists, as has been mentioned? New legislation will curb much of this, and—many people think—the sooner the better, but it takes determination and courage to stand up to such activities, as has been demonstrated by Huntingdon Life Sciences personnel.
	Medical and pharmaceutical research, however, is mobile, as are those who conduct it. They are capable of moving to other countries, and, with the problems associated with the Cambridge primate lab and the animal lab in Oxford, I know full well that the scouts from American laboratories and institutions are out for the best brains who may think it useful to move to other parts of the world.
	Doubtless your Lordships will have received papers from the Association of University Teachers and university academic staff in their campaign for higher salaries for some 65,000 academics and research workers. I have complete sympathy with them for their case. For far too long academic salaries have been unbelievably low for individuals who have achieved so much, got higher degrees, undertaken important research, received prizes, and done a lot of teaching and administration.
	This lack of adequate rewards has made it a challenge to fill vacancies in departments of all kinds. A glance at some of the scientific journals shows that the list of research student opportunities is large, but the number of places to be filled by graduates, postgraduates and post-doctorals is also large. If we look over the membership of many departments in this country, we see a relatively high proportion of non-British names. It is no bad thing to have strong representation from overseas, but I would like to see that adequately balanced by personnel from the UK.
	This aspect brings me to my final comment on how British science and technology is related to the global village we live in. A strong base in science and technology reflects on the contribution a country can make in the developing world. The strength of research attracts major funding, as instanced by the Gates foundation placing major funding for malaria research in this country and the Wellcome Trust supporting tropical disease work.
	So much of this effort, though welcome, is for high-profile diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and malnutrition. There are, however, a number of diseases that have been labelled "neglected tropical diseases"—protozoan parasites, worms and so on. These are as important as many of the high-profile diseases, and research and development is needed for them as well. Many of the people who might come to this country for further training, as PhDs or post-doctorals, could contribute enormously and bring with them the concept of helping in these countries. Certain pharmaceutical companies have freely donated medicines to control some of these neglected diseases for as long as needed.
	Finally, the public/private partnerships now increasingly evident in the third world, and aided by the Commission for Africa established by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer as a Marshall Plan for Africa, exemplify our commitment to the global village and will transfer our excellence in research and development to that global village, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya.

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I respectfully remind noble Lords that this is a time-limited debate. We are already about seven or eight minutes over time. That will cut into the time for the Minister's response at the end of the debate. I urge noble Lords to limit their speeches to eight minutes.

Lord Taverne: My Lords, I am a great fan of the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, and what I say is in no way a criticism of his excellent record as a Minister. However, all is not well with public attitudes towards science and technology. By that I mean the attitude of public bodies, including the Government. There are many favourable developments but I want to draw attention to those which are less so and give three examples.
	First, I follow the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, and mention agricultural biotechnology. The Prime Minister made a speech in which he gave very strong support to the development of genetically modified crops. Shortly afterwards Defra agreed to license one particular GM crop. I then wrote an article saying that that was a rather brave act which I welcomed, and said how refreshing it was. How wrong I was because the licence was then surrounded by such impossible conditions that the company which was to grow the crop found it impossible to do so on a commercial basis. What Defra had done, not for the first time, was to face both ways—on the one hand to give nominal support to the Prime Minister and on the other hand to make sure that it did not offend Green activists. The result of this cowardice on the part of the Government—for which the Minister is in no way responsible because he is not allowed to take any part in discussions on GM—is that agrobusiness has left the United Kingdom. It is an enormously important business which is flourishing outside Europe. In Europe only Spain grows GM crops commercially, and grows them very successfully.
	Last year the amount of such crops under cultivation grew by 26 per cent. The total amount of GM crops under cultivation is now three times the total land mass of the United Kingdom. They are enormously successful in China, India, South Africa, Brazil and Mexico. The governments of India and Brazil initially opposed the idea of growing these crops but there was a farmers' revolt. They obtained some illegal seeds and made it clear that they would continue to grow these crops and, if necessary, beg, borrow or steal the seeds. The governments caved in and now both the Brazilian and the Indian governments are enthusiastic supporters of the new technology. Within a few years China will undertake about half the total research into agricultural biotechnology carried out in the world. However, we are being left completely behind; that is a failure on the part of the Government.
	Secondly, I read the recent report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution on crop spraying and was astounded by its lack of scientific rigour. I then talked to a number of leading toxicologists who are appalled by the report. It starts by accepting that there is no evidence that crop spraying causes ill health. It forgets the lesson that evidence is not the plural of anecdote, because it then proceeds to rely on anecdote.
	It is recognised that psychological factors such as dread of harm can cause ill health but there are no laboratory-based criteria for the diagnosis of such an effect, yet the commission proposes that new animal models should be developed to test for such effects. So it wants us to develop a model for something that may not exist and for which there are no objective diagnostic criteria.
	In effect, the commission has based its report on asking for proof of safety. You cannot rule out the possibility of harm; you cannot prove safety. It is the old statement that absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence. If we had to prove that all food was safe we would all starve, because no food can be proved absolutely safe. It is a sloppy report. The irony is that if people are really worried about the effect of pesticides they should go for genetically-modified crops, because genetically-modified, pest-resistant crops can greatly reduce the amount of pesticide sprayed.
	My third example is mobile phones. The Stewart inquiry was set up in 1999, not on the basis of evidence that mobile phones caused harm but on the basis of anticipating public concern because the Sunday Times and other newspapers had said that mobile phones fry your brains. There was no evidence to that effect, and indeed the report did not find any, but it nevertheless recommended that small children should not use them very frequently. That advice was conspicuously ignored. There was evidence from the Netherlands and a mass of evidence from the United States, all of which showed a complete absence of any evidence of harm. In the mean time, the campaigns go on for local authorities to take health into account in the siting of phone masts. If there is no evidence of any harm from mobile phones, as the latest reports make clear—not in the first 10 years at any rate—phone masts hugely dilute the amount of radiation because of their distance from the ground, and there is even less risk from masts than from mobile phones.
	Such disregard for evidence is not atypical, because recently the Physical Agents Directive on Electromagnetic Fields was published, which was based on no evidence whatever. It poses considerable threats to MRI scans and will in fact do more harm than good because it means that more people have to rely on X-rays. Fortunately it is now in the safe hands of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of King's Heath, who seems to be taking a sensible approach; but why on earth did we not oppose the directive? No doubt because there was agitation by some of the Green activists, and we did not want to be seen to be opposing them. Earlier we had the phthalates directive nonsense. There was no scientific evidence for it. For years, babies have been chewing, without any harm whatever, plastic toys and objects which are now banned.
	It is all based on the precautionary principle that we should be better safe than sorry. There are 14 definitions of the principle and none of them is very illuminating, yet the Government continue to declare that it must be the basis of our policy. The principle is either so obvious that it is useless: "if there is evidence of risk then be careful". Of course, who could possibly disagree? But more generally the definition used for the principle is that when there is a threat of harm measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not established scientifically. That opens the way for press campaigns, for public fears, for those people who want to stop a technology that they do not like—who want to stop the world because they want to get off.
	There are many scare stories; almost one a day. We are told that we are swimming in seas of chemicals or we are being poisoned by pesticides—when in fact food has never been safer and we have never been healthier or lived longer. We need a rigorous approach to evidence. We need to counter the march of unreason, which poses a serious threat to science and technology in Britain.

Lord May of Oxford: My Lords, I am indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya, for this debate. I particularly welcome this opportunity, harking back to my time as Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government, to say what a pleasure and a privilege it was to work with the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, our truly excellent Minister for Science and Innovation.
	Looking beyond our shores, I begin by quoting from the introduction to a report to President Clinton in 1995 from his Council of Economic Advisers chaired by Joe Stiglitz, who at that time happened to be my neighbour in Princeton and was later a Nobel laureate. It said:
	"Increasing the productivity of the American workforce is the key to higher living standards and stronger economic growth in the future. Evidence indicates that investments in research and development (R&D) have large payoffs in terms of growth. R&D yields new products, improving the quality of life, and new processes, enabling American firms to reduce cost of production and become more competitive. Indeed, investments in R&D are estimated to account for half or more the increase in output per person".
	That statement has been elaborated on in many other economic studies in recent years, which show that it is impossible to account for the international patterns—the differences among countries in productivity growth—in terms of older ideas of their being driven simply by labour and capital. Rather you have to put in the third ingredient—new knowledge—which, as the Stiglitz report remarked, in some cases accounts for as much as half of productivity growth.
	More generally, there are studies that indicate that the return from R&D is a mixture of a private return to the investors and an even larger and higher return to society. Necessarily roughly, the general sort of answer you get—whether from the study commissioned a few years ago by the Treasury and the Office of Science and Technology from the Science and Technology Policy Research Unit at Sussex University or from others—is that the private rates of return on investment in R&D are in the range of 20 to 30 per cent, and that the social returns as a public good are in excess of 50 per cent.
	The reason for the disparity between the private and the public return is simply that investing in the creation of new knowledge and cashing in, in terms of new and marketable products, is a complicated and non-linear process. We rarely reflect that the microphones that enable us to be heard in this Chamber, or the television screens that enable us to follow what is going on while we are dining or working in the Library, are directly connected, albeit by a tortuous chain, to the almost ethereal abstraction of Maxwell's equations well over a century ago—from which he never made a penny. The spillovers from basic research are usually unforeseeable and often inherently unownable. That means that funding for the science base necessarily, and in essentially all countries, must come from public money. It is a classic public good.
	On a more chauvinistic note, it is interesting to look at the UK's performance, in both basic research and its translation into innovative products, in comparison with other countries. Such international comparisons are misleading if you look at them in absolute terms, because doing so confuses the size of a country with the quality of the performance. I shall give an example. The United States usually tops the Olympic medal tables. If you count medals per capita or in relation to GDP, the United States does not even make the top 20, and the UK beat it in the most recent games. I have to add, on a truly chauvinistic note, that you can all guess who comes first in that table.
	For density of excellence in the creation of new knowledge measured, for example, as highly cited papers in relation to population or GDP, the top performer consistently is Switzerland. It is followed mainly by Scandinavian countries, but with the US and the UK showing strongly. On that scale, the UK is slightly ahead of the US. Some major countries in science do not show so well once you look at the return, in terms of papers or citations, in relation to what they spend. That is a figure of merit in which the UK is the world No.1. It is helped by the excellence of our output and, until we began to do something about it recently, under-investment in the input. Incidentally, I should add that Scotland would be the No.3 performer in output per capita if it were not dragged back by being brigaded with England—my middle name is McCredie.
	To get closer to direct relevance to the UK economy, we could look at patent ownership. If you examine first the papers cited as the inspiration for patents, they come mainly from publicly-funded research. More than three-quarters come from university research and the science base. If you move on to look at patent ownership, you must distinguish between US or European patents. It is illuminating to re-scale them by dividing by GDP. When you do that, we do not do too badly. Within the European comparison, we are ahead of countries like France, Italy and many others, but behind Switzerland, Germany and many of the smaller Scandinavian countries.
	As earlier speakers have said, however, when you look at the last stage in the process, private spending—the spending by business and industry on R&D—the comparison is unfavourable. That is why we spend only 1.8 per cent of GDP on research and development, compared to our unrealistic aspiration in the recently announced 10-year government plan that by 2015 we would be spending 2.5 per cent. That deficit is as a result of a shortfall in private spending; very little of the deficit relates to public spending.
	In summary, I have no doubt that the public goods that flow from the strong UK science base do much more than their share of helping to create wealth and better quality of life around the world. But it is also a national strength that we are increasingly exploiting—for example, patent ownership by UK universities has doubled in the past 10 years. We still need more adventurous expenditure, expressed as more private R&D investment, if we are fully to benefit from the exceptional strengths of our science base.

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: I remind noble Lords that their speaking time is up the second that "8" appears on the clock. At this point in the debate, the Minister will have lost eight minutes of his speaking time, with no time left for the noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya, to reply. Will noble Lords please make sure that the maximum time they use is when "8" appears on the clock?

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, the pressure is on for me to make my comments within the allotted time, so I shall be quick.
	I begin by welcoming the support that the Government have given to science and particularly to medical research. I am very pleased to see it. As the Prime Minister stated:
	"The science base is the absolute bedrock of our economic performance".
	The Government are putting their money where their mouth is, as exemplified by their £10 billion spending commitment for UK science announced in the 2004 spending review. In particular, according to an announcement made by the Department of Trade and Industry in March, the Government will invest via the Medical Research Council more than £440 million over the next three years for clinical research into diseases such as cancer, stroke and diabetes. I very much welcome that. I was also very pleased to see a manifesto commitment to make the UK the,
	"best and most attractive location for science and innovation in the world through the largest sustained increase in science spending in a generation".
	So I welcome this debate. I declare an interest not only as a past chief executive officer of a medical research charity but also as a very lapsed scientist. Today, I want to make two points.
	First, I believe that one of the best ways of achieving our manifesto commitment is to build on the research capacity of the NHS, which is literally our UK science USP. I want to talk briefly about a special example which is very dear to my heart and which shows how well that can work. Many noble Lords will have been aware of breast cancer awareness month, which has come to an end. My former charity, Breakthrough Breast Cancer, may be known for its pink products, celebrity fashion icons, T-shirts and fluffy teddies, but all the fuss is about raising hard cash to establish and support a truly outstanding research centre that brings together scientists and clinicians in a co-ordinated research effort aimed at understanding the causes of breast cancer, identifying new targets for treatment and promoting new innovation, with the ultimate aim of achieving the charity's vision of a future free from fear of breast cancer.
	The Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Centre opened in 1999. It is housed in the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden Hospital and also has very close links with Guy's Hospital and St Thomas's Hospital. More than 100 scientists and clinicians now work there under the leadership of Professor Alan Ashworth and his deputy, Professor Clare Isacke.
	This debate should be about results, and so I should like to spend a couple of moments highlighting some of the outputs of the breakthrough centre. As it opened only five years ago, I think that it is quite remarkable. For example, Professor Ashworth recently announced the identification of a potential new drug that could dramatically improve the treatment of patients with certain types of hereditary breast cancer. Women carrying faults in their BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which are associated with breast cancer, have up to an 85 per cent chance of developing breast cancer if they live to the age of 70.
	In April 2005, Professor Ashworth reported that a new drug—a poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitor, known as a PARP inhibitor, for obvious reasons—may be very effective in killing tumour cells in people who have faults in their BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. This drug is likely to be much less toxic for healthy cells than standard chemotherapy. The PARP inhibitors are expected to enter into clinical trial to monitor the safety of the drug and determine the most effective dosage for future clinical trials. It is remarkable that such a new drug is coming to trial after such a short period. That has been made possible by the close collaboration of scientists and practising clinician scientists, who, I assure noble Lords, are a very rare breed.
	This new therapeutic approach centres on exploiting a specific deficiency in breast cancer cells—their Achilles heel. It is exactly the kind of targeted breakthrough that we need to see to tackle this most common cancer in women in the UK. It is also exactly what we want to see adding value to our knowledge-based economy: UK research undertaken with charity funding at an institution supported by the Government, developing novel approaches tried and tested in the NHS, with potential spin-offs worldwide and ultimately, we hope, saving lives.
	However, if we are to make the most of advances such as these, it is essential that we speed up the time taken from bench to bedside, as we have seen in the case of Herceptin. We need timely, streamlined processes getting the benefits of modern research to patients as quickly as possible. It is good for patients and makes good business sense too.
	To emphasise further my point about the NHS, I want to talk about the Breakthrough Generations Study. This was launched a year ago and I believe that it exemplifies why the NHS is very much our USP. Of course, medical research is not just about developing treatments; with a disease such as breast cancer, it is essential that we also concentrate on understanding the causes of the disease. It is now just over a year since the study was launched. It will be the UK's largest comprehensive study into the causes of breast cancer, recruiting up to 100,000 women from the age of 18. It will run for the next 40 years, and possibly longer, although the first results are expected very much sooner than that.
	We have all recently talked about the importance of Richard Doll's work on the causes of lung cancer. The Breakthrough Generations Study aims to do the same for breast cancer. However, we already know that breast cancer is a multifactorial disease and therefore the challenge is much more complex. I am delighted that the study has already recruited up to 30,000 women—10,000 on the first day, amazingly—and 700 participants are joining every week.
	I believe that this study, which will be the largest in the world to look comprehensively at the causes of breast cancer, exemplifies why NHS cancer registries continue to be so important. Elsewhere in the world it is not possible to follow such large numbers of patients for such long periods and to follow up with new blood every five years. As we know, there are real challenges for clinical research, and I believe that studies like this exemplify why the UK is such an outstanding location for science.
	Secondly, very briefly, if we are to make the most of all our talents in this country we need to continue to do much more to increase the representation of women in science, engineering and technology. I do not want to rehearse all the old arguments—I am sure that noble Lords know them very well—but I would like to highlight one killer statistic which, for me, sums up the problem. In science, engineering and technology occupations, men's hourly earnings are higher than those of women in the same occupations and men's hourly earnings increase with age whereas women's hourly earnings remain the same. There are many outstanding women out there, not least Breakthrough's very own Professor Clare Isacke, but it can be tough for them, especially if they want to have a family. I would be grateful if the Minister could update us on the measures being taken to ensure that we maximise on all the available talent, with the obvious benefits to our economy that that will entail.
	Nearly 50 years ago my mother had to give up training as a promising clinical scientist when she fell pregnant. One would hope that things have got better. Now, as her grand-daughter—my daughter—grinds away at her science specialist school showing all the signs of becoming a promising scientist herself, should I be optimistic about her prospects of a rewarding career both financially and intellectually, or should I encourage her to do media studies instead?

Lord Soley: My Lords, this is a very wide-ranging and important debate, but because of time constraints, and because I have spoken too often this week already, I shall be focused and, I hope, brief as well. I want to pick up on this very important issue of what has happened in China, India and, increasingly, Brazil in relation to a matter about which I have considerable knowledge— Hammersmith Hospital and its links with Imperial College. Last year, I was in communication with the Department of Health and the Home Office because I knew that the long-term plan for Wormwood Scrubs was to phase it out, as the old Victorian prisons are being phased out. I make it absolutely clear that no one is talking of closing Wormwood Scrubs Prison tomorrow, but given that there is often a 10-year timescale for building new scientific hospitals, there is every reason to look at that site, which is right next to Hammersmith Hospital, and to consider developing it as a science-based hospital of world-class standing.
	I am not saying that Hammersmith Hospital is not already a hospital of world-class standing, because it is. For many years, it has been training very large numbers of Chinese doctors. Significantly, this year those numbers have dropped dramatically, by about 20 per cent. The reason is that China is now training its own doctors. We ought to be proud of the role that we have played in that, a role which we are playing for other countries too.
	Consequently, however, as big hospitals develop in China, India, Brazil and elsewhere and are matched only by those already existing in the United States, we need to focus on the fact that Europe has no similar science-based hospital of that size. We now have what could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If the Home Office is planning eventually to close Wormwood Scrubs, we should start thinking now about developing that site. I have been in touch with both Imperial College and Hammersmith Hospital and we have been discussing this over the past 12 months. When I was a Member of the House of Commons I also discussed the matter with Ministers there.
	At some stage in the fairly near future I might want to see the Minister about the proposal. There is great excitement about it because we recognise that one of the big advantages of Hammersmith Hospital is that it is sited in an area of special needs in terms of mixed-income groups and ethnicity. That is a very powerful driving factor which many other hospitals in many of the competing countries that I have mentioned do not share. In other words, if we can create a site for Hammersmith Hospital that is large enough to rival those in north America, China and India, we shall create a science-based hospital in Britain that also dominates the scene in Europe, as there is no comparable hospital in Europe.
	I put that down as a marker. I would like to see the Minister at some stage. I shall leave it at that, saving the Minister another five minutes of his time. I look forward to discussing the matter in more detail on another occasion.

Lord Haskel: My Lords, my remarks are based on practical experience in business and in introducing technology. It was about 50 years ago when I started work at a textile dying and finishing company and, if noble Lords will excuse the pun, it did not take long to realise that the firm was dying on its feet. It was dying because it took six weeks to process the fabric. Thanks to new and existing technology, we managed to reduce that to 72 hours, by which time people really were beating a path to our door. That became part of what is now known as "quick response". Together with computer-aided design and other technologies, quick response has enabled firms such as Topshop and H&M to renew their range every 14 days. These technologies have changed the high street everywhere and provided an enormous benefit to our economy.
	The contribution of science and technology to all of this was essential, but it was not sufficient. What was required in addition was a change in company culture; a new business model which accommodated new technology. Without that, the new science and technology would have remained on the shelf.
	It is difficult to make this change. The noble Lord, Lord May, spoke of productivity. Economists have shown that about half the improvements in productivity which usually involve new technologies are secured not by the old firms changing their ways, but by new firms coming into the market with their technology and the old firms going out of business. The difficulties arise because even when the benefits of new technologies are obvious, they are frequently unfashionable. So you have to persuade your customers, the consumers and others in the business chain, that what they are buying is acceptable and can be trusted. There is a lot of doubt and cynicism to be overcome and more fail than succeed.
	In my experience, you rarely achieve harmony or consensus around new technologies. The noble Lord, Lord Taverne, confirmed that. But in practice you have to identify the areas of mutual concern and establish relationships around them. In this way, by anticipating hostility, you can at least raise your company profile, hope to avoid major risks to your finances or reputation and generally create an open culture conducive to innovation. This is the nature of risk. And then you have to sell this risky package to investors under the heading of increasing shareholder value. You have to convince investors, campaign groups, regulators and even your own directors that you are introducing new technologies that meet customer requirements in a manner that beats market expectations. It is not easy.
	Large firms such as National Grid, Transco and BT have worked out how to deal with these concerns, but what about the small firms which have to introduce new technologies to enter the market? Remember, they are responsible for half the improvements. How can they be helped? One way is through consultancy. I congratulate the DTI on the success of the small firms advisory and mentoring schemes that they have introduced over the years. They have been of enormous value. Another form of self help is to look at the website introduced last year by the RSA through its Forum for Technology, Citizens and the Market. This website describes the problems I have mentioned and says how others have overcome them successfully. Examples of good practice are a definite help and an encouragement. I hope that the Minister will join me in congratulating the RSA on its initiative. I must declare an interest as one of the instigators of the project.
	Of course, in business you often come up against the alternative view. "Why should we bother with science and technology when we are rapidly becoming a service economy?" And, "Everything will soon be made in Asia anyway.", as the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, mentioned. "Although we are good at inventing things, we are bad at commercialising them". I reject that view.
	In my opening remarks, I explained how science and technology had revolutionised the clothing retail industry—and retail is our biggest service sector. What this means is not that we must change our policy of enterprise and innovation through science and technology; but what globalisation does is to make the policy more urgent. Through science and technology, old industries must reinvent themselves and take advantage of fast-changing, consumer-driven markets, while new industries emerge through the efficient and close interaction between science and business.
	As far as our being good at science but less good at commercialising the results, I do not know whether that was true or not. What I do know is that, thanks to the work of the Government and in particular my noble friend the Minister, things are now different. My noble friend Lord Bhattacharyya has told us how things have changed. Universities are encouraged to commercialise their discoveries and more and more are doing so with growing success.
	Another important initiative by the DTI to improve this commercialisation of science is the knowledge transfer networks. This initiative is specifically designed to speed up the flow of information from the laboratory to business and vice versa. Both directions are important. In a specific field of technology or business, this initiative brings together suppliers, customers, universities, research organisations and the finance community. These networks make sure that science does not remain in the laboratory and the laboratory quickly learns the needs of the consumer. I declare an interest as the honorary president of one such network called TechniTex. I have made sure that we also reach out to the service sector.
	However, these networks are developing further. In his second Reith Lecture in April, the noble Lord, Lord Broers, spoke about the need for teams to produce advances in technologies. He spoke about how innovation draws from several sources and combines many more. The noble Lord, Lord Broers, will be pleased to know that someone was listening and yesterday the first meeting took place of a materials knowledge transfer network which brought together the networks involved in all kinds of advanced composites, materials, plastics and textiles to create what the noble Lord referred to as a matrix of technical creativity. I have every confidence that new products and processes from the materials knowledge transfer network—the flagship network—will flow to the consumer at a speed which will confound the critics and delight the Minister. I hope that it will have his support.

Lord Hunt of Chesterton: My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya, on initiating the debate. He has had a most distinguished career. At the University of Warwick, he helped to show the way in relating science and technology in universities to the needs of industry. When I was the first research student at Warwick in 1964, we had to conduct our experiments in the Bristol Siddeley factory next to Coventry police station, where, incidentally, I learnt about the procedures for identity parades as part of my PhD programme.
	The Government were elected in 1997 following a period of diminished government funding of science which started not just in 1979 but in the late 1970s. This stimulated scientists to look for alternative sources of funds from UK industry and from overseas. So when after 1997 this Government expanded S&T funding, many British universities and institutions were in a good position, with their strong linkages, to make use of it. That view is held by many of our continental colleagues, who say that they never went through the "cold shower" period which the Brits had to endure.
	The other important feature of the funding post-1997 is that UK research has considerably improved in quality and quantity. As your Lordships might expect, I want to give two topical examples. The Hadley Centre is regarded as the world's number one for climate prediction. It is the standard by which US laboratories measure their own performance, as I have witnessed on committees in the United States. Last week, a Royal Society conference was told how the Met Office made a three-day forecast of Hurricane Katrina's arrival on the southern American coast. The error was only 60 kilometres for three days ahead. It was the most accurate in the world.
	I want to make a few points about science and technology in industry. I declare an interest as a professor at University College and a director of a small company in Cambridge. First, UK tax policy has helped small companies through encouraging reinvestment in R&D and—to pick up a point made by my noble friend—by helping women to work in those companies through more generous maternity arrangements; I assure your Lordships that in my company they receive equal pay. This week, the Times Higher Educational Supplement contains a strong article about the remarkable achievements of some small spin-off companies, notably in Oxford and Cambridge. Some of those achievements are not only scientific but financial. I fear that I have never experienced that aspect of the process.
	However, the successful development of those companies and the application of research requires more funds for knowledge transfer, as my noble friend Lord Haskel commented. In my experience, and as people providing evidence to House of Lords committees have commented, it is often much easier to get half a million pounds for some fundamental science than to find even £50,000 to develop an application, which the peer review system almost always rejects. It is true that it is easier to find money for application when there is a clear cash return, but if the object is to apply science to produce a product—for example, software or some device—that will be for the public good but where the direct cash return is uncertain, that is extremely difficult and, in my experience, you always have to go abroad. As Mr Alan Jones commented in his evidence to the committee, Woking is now a world leader in applying energy-saving technology, thanks to support from Denmark.
	My second point is that—again, as other noble Lords have commented—probably the biggest failure of the UK is the low level of investment in R&D by companies. The president of the Institution of Civil Engineers noted this week in his presidential address that the construction industry spends more on litigation than on R&D. Why? Because of health and safety issues and of mistakes. I shall tell your Lordships a little story. I was asked to advise a construction company about its science and technology policy, so I said, "Let us have an afternoon in which we learn about all the mistakes that take place". We saw slide after slide of the most catastrophic errors. I was never asked to return as a consultant to that company, but I believe that the people in that company learned a good deal from that experience. There is greater scope for using new materials and technology in that industry to improve productivity.
	Other noble Lords have talked about patents. My experience as an academic was that when a laboratory was asked to give advice to a major metallurgical company, the laboratory was paid £1,500 for its technical advice. We were then told that the company spent £50,000 on patenting that couple of days' work. So what is the incentive? It is extremely difficult and costly to take out patents. Do the Government have some suggestions about that?
	I know on excellent authority that my noble friend Lord Sainsbury likes to read management books. I am sure that he is familiar with Drucker's advice that you must always have agreement on a problem before trying to find a solution. The "over the top" approach of the earlier military is not a good approach for management nor for managing science. It would be helpful for the scientific community in the UK and elsewhere if the chief scientists of government departments and agencies were much more open in reviewing the critical research problems that need study. They are very good at telling you their successes, but they are not so good at telling you their problems.
	When I was head of the Meteorological Office, I was greeted on King's Parade when I arrived there by someone saying, "Julian, there are some really serious problems with statistics in the Met Office". So we looked into that. I do not know with what they greeted my noble friend Lord Sainsbury when he entered his office on Victoria Street, but I am sure that there are problems. However, a previous eccentric Minister of OST, Keith Joseph, stopped the National Physical Laboratory from producing its annual report. We need more such open reports focusing on the problems.
	Last month, I visited the United States where I heard from the Environmental Protection Agency that air pollution is leading to the deaths of 60,000 people each year in the United States. It commented on how science and technology may help to mitigate that effect. Another example is the serious problem of dealing with nuclear waste. As was said during last week's debate in the House, that is a critical issue for our nuclear energy policy. The Government should do more to focus on what are the critical problems, which is not happening at present.
	My final point, before the clock ticks, is that one of the greatest ways in which government research and technology can be applied is through data exchange and availability. As is known, the UK produces excellent research but it is nothing like as widely disseminated as data from United States laboratories. They have a much more open approach to data exchange. I frequently receive communications from people about the inadequacy of the dissemination of UK data. As I understand it, there is now not even a clear statement about the exchange of data between government agencies and laboratories. I worked on that 10 years ago; it seems now to be gathering dust. I hope that the Minister will look into that.

Lord Turnberg: My Lords, I should like to focus on the contribution that medical research makes to the UK economy. The contribution of biomedical and clinical research going on in our universities and hospitals across the country is remarkable, but largely unquantified, quite apart from its contribution to the nation's health. That is in addition to the large input made by the UK pharmaceutical industry. I intend to show that, if we extrapolate from the USA, where they have done the calculations, the UK probably gains £5 for every pound invested in medical research.
	Let me start with a few examples of the fruits that UK basic and clinical research have provided, from the invention and development of CT and MRI scanners through to the first development of hip replacement operations, monoclonal antibodies, H2 receptor antagonists, beta-blockers and new treatments for cancer and leukaemia. In each of those few examples, researchers in the UK have played the prime role in discovery and development from the laboratory to the bedside.
	All those medical and technological developments have contributed to longevity and good health. It is now clear that we are living longer. Anyone born today will live two years longer than someone born 10 years ago. We seem to gain two years of extra life for every 10 years that go by. That is, we gain 12 minutes in every hour, so for the two hours of this debate, someone born at the end of it will live 24 minutes longer than someone born at the beginning of it. It may seem even longer.
	It is not simply that we are living longer; we are living longer in a healthy state, that is, we are delaying the onset of disability and dependency. The improvements in health mean less time off work, less absenteeism, lower sickness benefit payments, lower burdens on carers, fewer and shorter hospital stays per person, longer employment and increased labour productivity. The increased productivity out of all of that is what we must weigh against the money that goes into research. A great deal of money goes in both directly from the Government through their research councils and from industry and the medical research charities—here I must express an interest as scientific adviser to the Association of Medical Research Charities.
	If you total all that up, it comes to a massive £5.5 billion per annum, of which I can say that the charities put in £634 million a year, the Government, through the MRC, £435 million, the Department of Health through its R&D programme, £650 million and the drug industry a huge £3.5 billion per annum, which makes up about one quarter of all UK industry R&D. But when we come to try to measure the economic returns from that investment, there is such a variety of ways to look at outcomes that it is not straightforward. In the UK, we have lagged behind in trying to calculate those returns, but efforts have been made in the United States and in Australia. Their figures suggest that the value to their economies is enormous. Conservative estimates suggest that in the USA, its large investment—much larger than ours, of course—is repaid at least fivefold.
	Let me reiterate some US statistics. For a cost to the US of about $1 trillion per year in research in both basic biological sciences and the development of new drugs and technology, the returns were calculated at eight times that figure—$8 trillion to $10 trillion per annum. In a study of morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease and cancer, the major causes of death and disability, it was calculated that only a 10 per cent reduction in mortality from those diseases would give a return of about $10 trillion per annum.
	All those calculations are provided in a very important book by two highly respected economists from Chicago, Kevin Murphy and Robert Topel. I commend the book to noble Lords. Their calculations provide very large figures that are difficult to grasp, but for every $1 trillion dollars invested, the return is around five to 10 times greater. Similar figures have been obtained in Australia.
	Of course all those figures are based on a number of assumptions and may not be entirely applicable here, but, whichever way you do the calculations, you still find extremely valuable economic returns. Even on the most pessimistic calculation, it is hard not to conclude that investment in medical research makes sense not only for social and well-being reasons but for economic ones, too. We have to make those calculations in the UK, and we have not yet done so. Help is at hand because the Academy of Medical Sciences, of which I am a fellow and an ex-vice-president, has initiated a study that I hope will provide some of the data fairly soon.
	I am aware that this Government do a great deal to stimulate investment in medical research. The current Chancellor of the Exchequer is well disposed towards it and has made medical research a high priority. The Department of Health has joined in; it is extremely supportive of the need for medical research and is also investing in that field. The Minister is making sterling efforts to encourage investment here by the bioscience and pharmaceutical industry and doing his very best to combat animal terrorist groups, for example. The industry is very concerned about a number of factors that inhibit its natural desire to invest here. It works in a global way and has direct access to many countries where it can do research with less stress and sometimes more economically. So it is vital that we lean over backwards to encourage the industry to invest here and not elsewhere, but not only in its own R&D because we also want it to strengthen its links with the clinical and academic community in the NHS and UK universities.
	I finish with the message that investment in basic biomedical and clinical research and pharmaceutical industry R&D yields very impressive dividends, not only in health and longevity, but in economic terms it gives returns that would be the envy of any top FT100 company.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya, for introducing this very important debate. I declare an interest: roughly between 1980 and 2000, I was a leading researcher at the science and technology policy research unit (SPRU) of the University of Sussex. I hold an honorary degree from that university and remain a visiting fellow at the science and technology policy research unit.
	I am not a scientist by training; I trained as an economist. As noble Lords will know, economics is the gloomy science. It was so labelled in the 19th century because the work of economists such as Ricardo and Marx was dominated by the law of diminishing returns. The noble Lord, Lord May, referred to that when he said that the more you apply the variable factor of labour to the factors of production, land and capital—particularly, land as a fixed factor—the more that returns will diminish in time. Marx and Ricardo failed to recognise that, over time, technology would raise the production function. The noble Lord, Lord May, referred to the fact that, looking at total factor productivity, we cannot account for improved productivity and production through increases in labour or capital. Much of it comes from increases in the supply of knowledge of technology, the application of technology, and increasing skills. In response to the fundamental question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya, of what contribution science and technology made to the British economy, it is increasing productivity. It is a global effect, and in some senses Britain has perhaps not gained as much as other countries.
	As the noble Lords, Lord May and Lord Turnberg, identified, attempts have been made to measure the contribution of science and technology to the economy. The Treasury's statement in its publication of July 2002 Investing in Innovation sums up the results of the work undertaken:
	"Estimates of the contribution of a firm's own R&D effort to productivity growth are typically high—estimates of private annual rates of return to R&D tend to be around 10 to 15 per cent, although some studies have estimated them to be as high as 30 per cent. Recent analysis of returns in the UK put this figure at between 10 and 20 per cent. To set this in context, the average net rate of return on capital employed for UK manufacturers over the period 1970 to 2001 was 5.7 per cent per year".
	As the noble Lords, Lord May and Lord Turnberg, emphasised, given the degree to which knowledge trickles out from basic research and development here—I will say much more on that in a moment—the actual social rate of return, as opposed to the private rate of return that I quoted, are far higher. They are at least 50 per cent; in other words, for every pound we invest, we get at least 50 per cent back. The noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, suggested that for every pound we invest in medical research we get £5 back. It is a very good investment by any standard, so I am very glad that the Minister has been so influential in encouraging the Government to undertake it.
	I was part of the original SPRU study in the 1990s on how to measure rates of return. It is worth identifying how the benefits come through. The first way is through what everybody knows: the increasing stock of knowledge and publications. The noble Lord, Lord May, referred to the importance of publications and how well the UK does in terms of the indices of the highly cited publications. The UK tops the list in value for money. But, picking up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, one reason for the value for money of our highly cited papers per pound invested, is that we pay our researchers so badly. We need to pay our researchers much better; some of the benefit ought to go to them.
	As well as codified knowledge there is tacit knowledge. When you write up an experiment you try to express what you have done in words, but people learn by doing: standing next to the surgeon or scientist, watching the experiment and learning how to do it. For example, initially the breakthroughs in recombinant DNA were understood by only the small teams around the researchers involved. They taught others, and those individuals taught others, spreading the knowledge, so the techniques of recombinant DNA are now well known, practised widely and included in sixth-form textbooks. We should not underestimate the importance of passing on tacit knowledge and learning by doing.
	That is why the second main way in which investment in science and technology makes itself felt is through the training of skilled personnel and graduates. We must be aware of two things: anyone with a scientific PhD is expected to have a basic knowledge of scientific principles and methods. They must know how to carry out a piece of research on its own, understand the concept of scientific method and how to monitor and evaluate the results.
	There is an important further aspect of the training of scientific labour. If we are to understand science, we must have people working at the leading edge of science. The UK produces something like 8 per cent of the world's total publications in science. Therefore, 92 per cent of those publications are produced elsewhere. If we are to benefit from those 92 per cent, we have to have people in the UK who act as receptors to that knowledge. They must understand it, interpret it and use it to the benefit of the UK. Therefore, the whole business of training people who can be at the leading edge is vital, which is one of the reasons why it is important to invest in research and development, and why companies need to invest in research and development. Unless our companies have the capacity to receive, understand and interpret the knowledge, they will not be able to use it.
	I have two slight qualms about what is happening. The first is the training of mathematicians. Mathematics is the language of science. I do not know how many of your Lordships are aware that in 1989 roughly 85,000 young people took an A-level in mathematics. That has now dropped to just over 50,000. That is very serious because unless people are being trained in mathematics—the A-level is, in a sense, the entry qualification required to enter into science—we will not produce a new generation of scientists. We can make up for it at university, but I am not sure we are doing that. There is a very real question over the teaching of mathematics in schools that we have to answer. The Minister knows that, because it is an issue that I have raised several times in the House.
	My second qualm was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby. Partly because we have paid our young scientists so badly we see many of the junior posts in our universities now filled not by British-trained people, but by people who were trained abroad. In many senses, that is a good thing, because it brings in a whole lot of people. But there is a danger that we are not training a new generation of young scientists to take over from those who are currently in their forties and fifties.
	I must quickly talk about the other issues. There is an important aspect of participation in networks. Tacit knowledge means that you have to be able to be working at the leading edge in order to participate in networks. As regards new instrumentation, we have talked about the MRI scanner. Solving complex problems is another issue that comes forward, as is the creation of spin-off firms. I do not have time to say any more than that. A huge challenge was facing UK universities at the end of the last century. They have risen to it. The Lambert report shows very clearly that the real problem lies not in the production of new ideas and the creation of spin-offs but in the picking up of those spin-offs by large companies and their failure to invest in R&D.

Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, I, too, join other noble Lords who have spoken today in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya, on securing today's debate. I congratulate him also on his very informative and excellent speech, which was to be expected bearing in mind his background in engineering and the sciences.
	The debate has been excellent, with wonderful contributions. In order for the Minister to have his full time allowance, I would have to finish my speech by eleven minutes past one. So I have chopped bits and pieces out of my speech to make sure that I could do that. I may have chopped out rather more than perhaps I ought to have done as it does not follow as well as I would like. So I shall say very few things in order that the Minister has a minute or two extra to answer the excellent contributions that most certainly have been made today. For me to stand here when the noble Lords, Lord May and Lord Hunt, my noble friend Lord Soulsby, and the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, who I know so well, and think that I can add anything that has not already been said is ludicrous.
	I wanted to say a little about knowledge technology, but the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, has covered that. I will just make a couple of points. I was very interested—I hope that the noble Lord took note of this point—in the amount of money that has to go into research to produce results. This has not been a political debate. It has been a very informed debate. But I was interested in what my noble friend Loud Soulsby said about the contribution that goes into research in China and the results of that contribution. Practically everything that we buy in the stores today has "Made in China" on it.
	The noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya, referred to global warming. We need money to find solutions to that. I shall read very carefully the speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan. I am sure that what she said was excellent. I heard bits of it, but for her to try to keep within the time limit with the content that she had made it difficult. I shall now sit down.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Bhattacharyya for raising the important issue of science and technology and its contribution to economic growth. I am also enormously thankful to the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, for her superb short speech, which added an enormous amount to the debate. We have had an excellent debate. I should like to close by reiterating the Government's strong belief in the contribution that science, technology and innovation can make to our economy and quality of life, by describing briefly what we have done to create the best possible conditions for science, technology and innovation to flourish and, briefly, also look at the results that we have achieved.
	Today, science and innovation are central to our economic success. The reasons for that are very simple. Barriers to world trade are coming down. The Chinese economy, with wages at 5 per cent of ours, is growing rapidly. The world's division of labour is being redrawn. In 1980, less than one-tenth of manufacturing exports came from the developing world. Today, that figure is almost 30 per cent. In 20 years' time, it will probably be 50 per cent. So we clearly face a very tough challenge.
	At the same time, technology and scientific understanding are changing our world faster than ever before and creating new opportunities. Development in ICT, new materials, biotechnology, new fuels and nanotechnology are creating a new wave of innovation and new opportunities for entrepreneurial businesses, large and small, to create competitive advantage.
	As recent events have shown, there are still countries in Europe that think protectionism in one form or another is the way to tackle global competition. Realistically, the only way in which developed countries will be able to survive and prosper in this new global economy and compete against countries such as China is by moving into new, high value-added areas. At the same time, in spite of what was said by my noble friend Lord Bhattacharyya and the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, we should be careful not to overestimate the current strength of Chinese science and technology. Today, their growth is largely driven by low wages, foreign direct investment and imported technology. But we can be certain that that will change. As China and India start moving up the value-added chain, as they certainly will, we can stay ahead, but we should not fool ourselves that it will be easy, and we will have to move fast.
	Science, technology and innovation can also make a major contribution to some of the global grand challenges which the world faces—for example, climate change, the identification and spread of infectious diseases or finding solutions to the most urgent needs of the world's poorest people, such as vaccines for malaria, HIV and TB. There is of course also the major contribution that medical sciences can make to our health, to which attention was drawn by my noble friend Lord Turnberg. It is for those reasons that the Government are determined to make the UK, in the words of the Prime Minister, one of the best places in the world for science and innovation and why we have made major policy changes in the past eight years to support new high-tech businesses.
	When this Government came to power in 1997, it was after a period when science and innovation had received very little political attention and had been badly underfunded. That is why our first priority as a government was to fund properly the science and technology base. In 1997–98, the science budget was £1.3 billion. As a result of substantial increases in a number of spending reviews, the science budget will have more than doubled in real terms to £3.4 billion by 2007–08. This currently includes £500 million a year for the renewal of scientific facilities in universities, and we now produce a 15-year road map for large facilities so that we can provide our world-class scientists with a world-class scientific infrastructure.
	The Government have also set themselves ambitious goals for the future in a 10-year science and innovation framework. The Government's long-term objective for the UK economy is to increase the level of knowledge intensity in the UK as measured by the ratio of R&D across the economy to national gross domestic product from its current level of around 1.9 per cent to 2.5 per cent by around 2014. If achieved, this would put the UK in a position to secure a leading place among the major European countries and would substantially close the gap between the UK and the USA, the best performing innovation-driven major economy.
	In response to my noble friend Lord Hunt and the noble Lords, Lord Soulsby and Lord May, all of whom raised the question of the amount of industrial research and development, it is important to recognise the make-up of that R&D. It is slightly lower than one would like in this country because of two major factors. The first is that we have seen great successes in a number of industries such as financial services, the creative industries, and oil and gas. Those industries have a low percentage of R&D to turnover, which affects our position when looked at across the economy. Secondly, we still have strengths in a number of industries such as the automobile industry, but they are now foreign owned and the research is carried out abroad. If we are to change and increase the amount of R&D, it will be by encouraging its growth particularly in small and medium-sized businesses, as that restructures the economy. Indeed, one of the most encouraging signs is the very substantial surge in the amount of R&D being undertaken by SMEs and medium-sized business.
	A second major objective of the Government has been to increase the amount of knowledge transfer from our science and engineering base. A number of schemes have been introduced to achieve this, including University Challenge, which has provided universities with seedcorn funds; Science Enterprise Centres, which have provided access to entrepreneurial skills to science and engineering undergraduates and graduates; and the Higher Education Innovation Fund, which provides incentives for universities to transfer knowledge to the economy. These programmes have been successful in stimulating more knowledge transfer from universities in terms of licensing, patents, spin-off companies and contract work for industry. To take just two figures, the stock market value of university spinouts floated on the stock market in 2004 was £604 million, £100 million more than the Government's total investment in knowledge transfer to date. Today, 24,000 science and engineering students are receiving enterprise training in our universities, whereas the figure in 1998–99 was 3,000. If one figure gives one confidence in the future of British industry, it is in the number of young people taking enterprise courses who are also scientists and engineers.
	A third major objective for the Government has been to encourage more applied or user-driven research as an increase in it is essential if we are to reach our goal of ensuring that total public and private research reaches our ambitious target of 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2014. That is why we have allocated £320 million over three years to the Technology Programme, which is managed by an industry-led technology strategy board. We have also introduced R&D tax credits for small and large companies to incentivise them to carry out more research. These are now worth £600 million a year to businesses. We have also introduced our version of the highly successful SBIR scheme in the USA, which requires government departments to allocate 2.5 per cent of their research budgets to small businesses.
	A fourth and very important area on which I have had to spend a great deal of time as Minister for science and innovation is that of public engagement with science. Here we have radically changed our approach from one of increasing "the public understanding of science" to one which seeks to address the public's concerns about the ethical, safety, health and environmental issues raised by major new advances in science and technology. This is the approach we used in 2003 when we asked the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering to look at the regulatory issues raised by nanotechnology, and to do so in full consultation with the public. This they did very successfully and we are now rolling out this approach in the Sciencewise programme of public engagement. This, I believe, is the way forward. We need to deal with people's concerns about major advances being made in the new technologies rather than to brush them aside by saying that they must accept changes in science and technology without querying the many important ethical, safety, health and environmental aspects.
	My respect for the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, is probably even greater than his respect for me, but I think that he has misinterpreted the British public's view of science. In fact it is very clear from our research that, on the whole, the public has a great deal of respect and enthusiasm for science. People think that it is a good career to pursue and that it brings great benefits to society. However, they are concerned that the Government do not have control over new developments in science and technology. They worry that those may take place too quickly without government control. For that reason, the right approach is to ensure that early on in the development of new technologies, we look at the ethical, safety, health and environmental issues and deal with them.
	Finally, I would like to mention the emphasis we place on science, technology and innovation in our regional policies, with the regional development agencies strengthening research activities essential to regional growth, supporting knowledge transfer from universities, encouraging high-tech clusters and providing financial support for new high-tech firms. All RDAs now have a science and industry council, and it is encouraging to note that RDAs are planning to spend £360 million a year on supporting science and innovation.
	The international dimension of science, technology and innovation is of great importance. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, pointed out, if we carry out 5 per cent of the world's science, some 95 per cent takes place elsewhere, and linking in with that scientific work is of key importance. I am pleased to announce today that we are providing £6 million to four collaborative projects which will link world-class British universities with world-class American ones to increase scientific excellence and innovation. These will include the University of Manchester working with the University of Washington and a wide range of businesses on the development of composite materials for use in aircraft design; Imperial College in London working with the University of Texas, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Georgia Institute of Technology on the treatment of cancer and on energy research; Cambridge University continuing its productive partnership with MIT; and a consortium of the universities of Bath, Bristol, Southampton and Surrey working with the University of California in the areas of wireless technology, the life sciences, the environment and advanced materials.
	I turn now to a number of the specific points raised by noble Lords. I agree with my noble friend Lord Battacharyya, the noble Lord, Lord May, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, that our scientific research is outstanding and we need to regard it as a major national asset to the country. The way I think it can best be expressed is to say that we have 1 per cent of the world's population, but we undertake 5 per cent of the world's science. We produce 9 per cent of all scientific papers and receive 12 per cent of all citations. That indicates clearly the quality of the science being carried out. Indeed, we are responsible for 13 per cent of the most highly cited papers produced in the world.
	As I have said, the record on industrial research is slightly better than perhaps was implied during the debate. It is also encouraging to note that after years of falling rates of research, after it bottomed out in 1998 it has since stabilised and is now rising slightly. It is not increasing quickly enough, but it is going in the right direction. In response to the points made by my noble friend Lord Soley, I cannot comment on any particular planning application on a certain piece of land, but I shall be delighted if he comes to see me. That is the least I can do given the short length of his remarks, which was very helpful.
	My noble friend Lord Haskel was absolutely right to stress the difficulties and importance of innovation. It is the process of taking science from the university and turning it into products which is so important. It is not easy to do, although we are getting better at it in this country. The figures I have already given make that clear. However, I acknowledge that this is the central issue.
	In answer to my noble friend Lady Morgan, in 2004 we set up the UK Resource Centre for Women, based in Bradford, which has funding of £2.69 million. It is making already a considerable impact on women in all areas—not only on women in university science but also on those at technician level. I direct my noble friend's attention to the Science and Engineering Ambassadors scheme, which has been very successful. It has moved up from a small number to a very large number of members, a large proportion of whom are women. This is exactly the way we should proceed in order to provide role models for children in schools, where they can see young people to whom they can relate taking on careers and being enthusiastic about them.
	As to the question posed by my noble friend Lord Hunt about problems and exposing those problems to scientists, the noble Lord, Lord May, started a process of ensuring that when we did have problems the Government called in the best expertise, rather than simply rely on the expertise that existed in government. That has continued. We have also produced recently our global challenges programme, which highlights some of the major problems in areas such as the science of aging where we want help.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, asked about the position of young scientists. Many of our young scientists, of course, do go abroad, but there are now figures which show that they come back. That is totally to be welcomed. They see it as a part of building up their careers for the future, which is to be encouraged. In the same way, we should encourage young scientists from abroad to come here. This is a part of the international position on science. We have gone away from the period when we had a brain drain. If anything, we now have a brain gain.
	So, as we enter the knowledge economy, we in the UK have the advantages of one of the best science and technology bases in the world. In future, we should take greater advantage of it for wealth creation and improving the quality of our lives. The Government's vision for the UK is that we should be a key hub in the global knowledge economy. This means that the UK should be a country famed not only for its outstanding record of discovery, but also for innovation; a country that invests heavily in business, R&D, education and skills and exports high tech goods and services to the world. We also want to be a country with strong science and technology links to the best research around the world so that we can always stay at the leading edge.
	Finally, we should be a country to which talented entrepreneurs and world-class companies come from around the world to carry out research and to set up high-tech companies, attracted by the quality of our research, by the strong links between universities, research institutes and industry, by geographic clusters of high-tech companies, by their ability to raise finance—particularly venture capital—and by the quality of life.
	I hope the debate has shown that the Government believe strongly that science and innovation is of crucial importance to the UK's future success; that we have made good progress in putting in place the best conditions for science and innovation to flourish; that universities and industry are rising to the challenge of the new knowledge economy; and that we are beginning to see the first benefits of our policies.

Lord Bhattacharyya: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate and I am glad to see my noble friend Lord Sainsbury back at the Dispatch Box.
	My noble friend is more sceptical than I about our situation. When people talk about the need for more "Britishness" in our laboratories and so on, they should go to the majority of the laboratories and universities in America, where it is like the United Nations. That is what we want here. We need to ease the way in which we recruit people and ease the regulatory framework under which we give them passports so that we can attract them to this country to fill up our laboratories. It is the only way in which we can get vibrancy into our research system.
	I agree with what my noble friend said about animal right activists.
	The noble Lord, Lord Taverne, spoke of his concern about the Government's regulation of science. I agree with my noble friend Lord Sainsbury that if we enter into it at a fairly early stage our regulations are more likely to be right than wrong. But, of course, we have had some bad ones.
	The noble Lord, Lord May, is always brilliant when he speaks. He is a mathematician and, therefore, he is always precise. I was a member of the Council for Science and Technology when he was the Chief Scientific Adviser and every meeting we had was brilliant. He sometimes lost his temper, but he was always right. In this debate he has articulated that a direct link between basic research and productivity is always very difficult to achieve; that to correlate indirectly is the right thing to do. In Britain, the standard of living and the quality of life that we have can be directly and indirectly attributed to our basic science. I could give many examples of where basic science could be directly correlated but, by and large, most of it is indirect. This is for the public good, and the noble Lord, more than anyone else, articulates it very well.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, referred to the results of cancer research and the need for speeding up the entry of women into SET. I agree. But I am sure that everyone knows—there are articles in the newspapers about it every day—that our cancer research is second to none. I should say to my noble friend Lord Soley that if he could develop a world-class science hospital in Imperial College it would be brilliant. I am sure our noble friend Lord Sainsbury will help him.
	My noble friend Lord Haskel said something about a subject that is very close to my heart because, more often than not, it is not only the technology developed in this country that is important. For our businesses to be competitive and productive, we should harness and exploit technology wherever it is developed. Although people always criticise that the transfer of pure science into the marketplace in this country has been poor, by and large, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, mentioned, 92 per cent of all development and research takes place in the outside world. The reason for the Asians doing well is that they have a skilled, literate workforce which articulates and implements its knowledge base because it is hungry for it. We can also do that. This is the issue to which my noble friend Lord Haskel referred. The situation is improving enormously. Many, many companies which never used to have graduates now have graduates and science graduates.
	My noble friend Lord Hunt referred to the problems of demonstrator projects—effectively that is what he was talking about—in America. Although we realise that Americans do not subsidise their companies, their demonstrator projects—especially funded by DAPRA and various other organisations—are huge. Let me give an example. They gave $2 million towards developing robots that could travel for 212 kilometres in the desert. Two years ago, they could do only 12 kilometres; this year five reached the target. The compact engine produced by the American automotive industry was developed through demonstrator projects. We in this country should look seriously at developing demonstrator projects jointly with industry and the universities.
	My noble friend Lord Turnberg spoke about medical research. We know that this country's contribution to medical research is second to none, and everyone acknowledges that. Any youngster who wishes to study science today—including the biological sciences and other exciting sciences—can do so in our universities. Hence intakes in those subjects—at least at my university—have increased enormously.
	Finally, I must thank my noble friend Lord Sainsbury, who is passionate about R&D. Where else would you find a grocer being passionate about an area of science and technology, and being passionate about delivering it to ensure that this country remains on top? I thank all noble Lords and I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Parliament and the Public

Lord Puttnam: rose to call attention to the Hansard Society report, Members Only? Parliament in the Public Eye, on participation in the political process; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, first, may I express my thanks to all those who have made this afternoon's debate possible, especially my noble friend the Leader of the House, who has given up a very great deal to be able to respond on behalf of the Government? I also thank the many noble Lords who have elected to speak this afternoon. It is a particular pleasure to me that my noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley has chosen this as the occasion on which to make her maiden speech. The whole House will wish to join me in welcoming her; I know we are all eager to hear what she has to say.
	When our report Members Only? Parliament in the Public Eye was initially published, it received what can only be described as mixed notices. However, within a week things began to look up, largely, I suspect, as a result of people actually reading it. I can honestly say that the ability of knowledge to break down prejudice never ceases to amaze me. But of course that is part of the subtext of this afternoon's debate.
	On the subject of knowledge, I here acknowledge my personal debt—in fact, the debt that all of us owe—to the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, whose most recent book Parliament in British Politics has become little short of a bible in allowing me to better understand Parliament past and present more confidently to anticipate the future. His presence among us offers the same reassurance as checking that one's seatbelt is secure on the motorway.
	Having survived what I have come to recognise as the macho reflex of some government departments towards reports that they have neither instigated nor controlled, this particular report has gone on to enjoy six months of remarkably fair weather. Not only has my right honourable friend the Leader of the House in another place demonstrated serious interest in many of its recommendations, but the Prime Minister himself has encouraged a number of other Ministers actively to look at ways in which these recommendations can advance the cause of public engagement, something that he takes very seriously. As, indeed, should all parliamentarians.
	I would argue that by ignoring the present scale of disengagement—or, rather more accurately, the hostility that exists towards politics in general—we are actively laying the foundation upon which political extremism can only flourish, to the point of possibly becoming unstoppable.
	To sit in an exalted place, unaware and unresponsive to change and churn in the society that surrounds you has always been a recipe for the downfall of the mighty—which begs the question: could this soon be true of Parliament? It is my contention that we are getting dangerously close to that being the case.
	Do not just take my word for it. Next month, many of us will gather across the road to celebrate the life of one of the outstanding parliamentarians of my generation—Robin Cook. Shortly before he died, here is what he had to say on the subject:
	"It is because I love Parliament that I never want to see it sink into irrelevance, a top draw on the tourist circuit, but no longer the crucible of the nation's politics. Its authority rests on public confidence, and if it is to restore that confidence it must change. It is those of us who most love Parliament who therefore want to see it modernised".
	He went on to say:
	"The problem is not that the British people have no opinion on the issues of the day, but that more and more of them no longer feel ownership of their parliamentary democracy, or believe that its political culture can solve the problems of their lives".
	That is not only Robin Cook talking to us, it is Robin Cook giving voice to just about everyone in this country under the age of 35, who has ever given 15 minutes' thought to their, or the nation's, future.
	Allow me to put my cards on the table. Having enjoyed the privilege of serving in your Lordships' House for just eight years, I find myself somewhat staggered to discover that my ambitions for Parliament are even greater than Parliament's ambitions for itself. As my granddaughters might say, "How strange is that!"
	In fairness, there has been movement. In the past six months we have seen a welcome expansion of the Parliamentary Education Unit. There has been the appointment of Mr Dominic Tinley as managing editor of the parliamentary website, in preparation for the "radical redesign" agreed as being necessary and urgent by both Houses. Most recent of all has been the appointment of Dr Elizabeth Hallam Smith as the new head of the Library and Information Services in this House. These are very much steps in the right direction and greatly to be welcomed.
	But before anyone gets carried away with enthusiasm, it is worth repeating what we said in the report. The pace and, in some cases, the nature of the changes taking place in society are occurring so rapidly that even our best efforts at incremental change leave us, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton, puts it, running in order to stand still. I would go even further: more often than not, we are actually falling behind public expectations.
	The problem lies not in our commitment but in our ambition. What is needed is not another round of incremental change, but a step change—and a large step, at that—in the way that Parliament engages with the electorate, especially the younger element of that electorate. By way of example, we have the opportunity to commission the finest resource for public and parliamentary information ever created—a model that every other country would seek to copy. It can be done.
	Last week, at an Internet conference here in London, I had the privilege of sharing a platform with Mr Bill Gates, and listened to his very compelling vision of the future—not the distant future, but the world of information just five years from now. In following this up, I became aware of the sheer scale and sophistication of web-based companies such as Amazon.com, which began its life just 10 years ago as a book retailing site, working out of a garage in Seattle. I am no great techie or wonk, so please bear with me while I attempt to enthuse your Lordships with what is already happening.
	Amazon.com fulfils the orders of more than 50 million regular customers. A regular customer is judged to be anyone dealing with Amazon more than once a month. As any of your Lordships who have purchased products online will know, you enter the home page to be greeted with something like, "Hello David Puttnam"—I am afraid the online world is no great respecter of titles—"you recently purchased so and so. Did you know that the same author has a new book out?" Or, "We noticed that you're developing a growing interest in jazz. Are you aware that the following CDs have been released in the past couple of weeks?". The point is that my interests have been accurately captured so that I can be constantly updated about what has recently become available within my predetermined areas of interest. What we have here is an enabling mechanism that allows us significantly to increase interest in the work of Parliament.
	By no means am I suggesting that we develop a cheap and cheerful version of what is already available in the US private sector. We in this country are perfectly capable of taking this technology to a new stage in its development. The BBC and Guardian Online are already world-class websites and the BBC's web-based development of "Listen Again" is literally transforming the audience for serious radio.
	I think we would all accept that interest in politics—certainly politics as we know it—has reached such a low ebb that it is difficult to see how it can be revived through what we might term natural means. As Robin Cook suggested, the electorate, most particularly the young electorate—those missing millions—will connect with Parliament only through issues which are of genuine concern to them. So, for jazz from Amazon.com, read climate change from Parliament.com. Why should the people of this country not directly connect and learn about the issues that most affect their lives through access to parallel activity in Parliament? When, as returning visitors, they are greeted by name at the entrance to the parliamentary site, why should they not discover what a great deal is happening on climate change in Parliament? The website could say, "The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee reported on Monday, and the Minister is making a Statement this afternoon. Would you like to see it—click here—or would you prefer to receive a copy?". And so on and so forth.
	The noble Lord, Lord Currie, will no doubt smile a little at my having conflated the consumer and the citizen, but I have never had a problem with the potential for enhancing the engagement of the citizen through opportunities and lessons learnt from the market place.
	None of this stuff is science fiction. All of it can be achieved here and now. Most importantly, this represents an opportunity for Parliament to prove that it can escape from the dead hand of incrementalism. Once it does so, other equally desirable changes will undoubtedly follow. Many under the age of 35 now regard the Internet as their principal source, not only for communication but for knowledge. We would be wilfully myopic were we to ignore the opportunity that this represents to re-engage a new generation of informed citizens, addressing their individual concerns and then steering them towards whichever aspect of the parliamentary process is most likely to satisfy their interests.
	I am not pretending that it would be easy, but surely it would be a development that we would all celebrate. I am sure that many noble Lords can already imagine well intentioned laughter seeping out of the Bishops' Bar at some of the ideas that I am floating this afternoon. But if we do not grasp the nettle of change, I am afraid that the laughter could well start rising from outside the walls of the Palace of Westminster until eventually the whole country is laughing at its Parliament. That would be a bad idea for any sustainable democracy.
	We actively seek the votes of the electorate on an individual basis. We attempt to persuade citizens to support parliamentary parties on an individual basis. Tomorrow, or over the weekend at surgeries up and down the country, MPs of all parties will be dealing with their constituents' problems on an individual basis, so why not use the technology that is available to ensure that those same individuals are continually informed of the issues and problems that loom largest in their lives? Why not shift from an essentially responsive mechanism, mediated by the press and other media outlets, to a proactive mechanism that seeks to inform and engage interactively and accurately?
	With all that in mind, I have one question for my noble friend of the Leader of the House, which I hope she will try to address in her response. It is already being suggested that parliamentary finances are being stretched to breaking point by the additional security measures that have been and are being put in place. As a result, the type of recommendations set out in this report may, at least for the time being, be placed on the back burner. Should that be the case, I hope that she will argue that the greatest security Parliament can obtain stems from the engagement and trust of the people—a trust that will best be developed through a process of honest, two-way communication between the electors and the elected. The idea that our ability to communicate with the electorate should be in any way compromised as a result of Parliament taking shelter behind ever deeper layers of steel is something that should not be countenanced.
	In closing, I am indebted to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, for introducing me to the belief of the former Prime Minister AJ Balfour that:
	"Democracy is government by explanation".
	Look no further for why the electorate is drifting away in droves. We have been appallingly bad at explaining what we, in this place and in Parliament generally, are really all about. That was the issue that our report set out to address. A number of our recommendations seem to have found favour with those interested in improving the work of both Houses. The purpose of this afternoon's debate is to stimulate that interest and create a sense of urgency for its implementation. As the noble Lord, Lord Norton, puts it in the final paragraph of his recent book:
	"Identifying what needs to be done is only half the battle. The other, more important half, is doing it".
	My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

Lord Howe of Aberavon: My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord in the debate that he has initiated. I am sure that the whole House will want to congratulate him on the production of the report and on the initiation of this debate—and on choosing a Labour Party day for what is essentially a Cross Bench and cross-party topic.
	The main focus of the report is, understandably, how the public see and learn about what we do, and what we can do to make that better. I do not dissent from that, nor any of the points made by the noble Lord in his speech. I am very glad about the first sentence of the first chapter of the report. It states:
	"A more effective Parliament would make a greater contribution than anything else to a renewal of British democracy".
	In other words, the substance of what we do and how we do it is probably even more important than how that is perceived and how we communicate it.
	I have one reservation about the scope of the report itself. I believe that the noble Lord has acknowledged elsewhere that it pays very little attention to your Lordships' House as a distinct component of Parliament. The report reflects the paradox spelt out by Emma Crewe in her engaging recent book Lords of Parliament in which she says:
	"The Lords is considered by many—particularly MPs and especially members of the Government—a political backwater and is neglected by political journalists".
	Yet, she adds:
	"The only effective opposition in Parliament comes from the unelected chamber".
	Last night's events put a slightly different edge on that, but the substance is the same.
	Despite the substantial improvement in recent years—in the Information Office, for example—in the extent to which we present what goes on in this House, it remains the case that far too little is known and understood about it. Here, we illustrate more than other places what is so much and so often happening in the presentation of Parliament as a history lesson. My rooms are at the other end of the Royal Gallery and every day I pass the guide presenting the history of this place. His report talks about it as a heritage tour. I get the impression that people learn more about the wives of Henry VIII and the strange activities of Black Rod than about what we actually do here.

Noble Lords: Hear, hear!

Lord Howe of Aberavon: My Lords, the message that should be put across about this House is important in light of the changes that have taken place over the past five years. People should be told, for example, that no longer is there an army of hereditaries waiting in the hills to descend on us. Instead, there is a very narrow, hard pressed and hard working group of parliamentary Stakhanovites who work harder, perhaps, than many of the rest of us. There is no longer a built-in majority for the Government nor even for the Conservative party. Neither major party has more than 30 per cent of the votes in this House and 40 per cent is composed of noble Lords in the Liberal Democrat and Cross-Bench corners of the Chamber. That is an important insight into the increased role that this House plays.
	The elected Chamber, quite rightly, has the last word, but this Chamber makes a distinctive input to the working of Parliament. When I address it, I feel that to some extent I am addressing the national jury— this broad spread of interests and expertise. It is probably more accurate to describe this House as the national judge because we distil the wisdom, as we like to think, but we then present that to the national jury in the democratically elected Chamber who have the last word. That is perhaps the better parallel.
	I have one footnote on the historical aspect of this House. I can well understand the concern of people—I have felt it myself sometimes—at the over-elaboration of ritual and dress. On the other hand, I confess to having been attracted by it on some occasions. I designed a uniform for the Chancellor of the Exchequer in which to go to the Trial of the Pyx because I did not see why everybody else should be dressed up and not me. However, we ought to remember that, although we are rightly critical of particular aspects of these things, tradition, history and ritual can serve a real purpose. Emma Crewe, who is after all an anthropologist, goes a little far when she says:
	"The rituals are the real stuff that politics are made of".
	That is an overstatement, but surely our language—the noble Lord, the right honourable gentleman in the other place, my noble friend—is a courteous way of reminding us to respect each other, instead of saying, "You've got it wrong mate". It is odd, but important. I do not stand up for every aspect of ritual, but dress is also important. People wear various degrees of strange dress from Annabel's to Butlin's, from the Quai d'Orsay to the Kremlin, for recognition purposes and to tell the staff from the visitors.
	To return to my opening reservations, the terms of reference obliged the noble Lord and his colleagues to concentrate perhaps too much on better presentation of the performance of a Parliament whose role is ever less respected because it is ever more stunted, "cabined, cribbed, confined" by the behaviour, not just of this Government but of successive governments. The noble Lord rightly reminded us of Robin Cook's phrase. That is one reason why people feel that they have lost ownership of Parliament—because it has been hijacked by the Executive.
	A similar question is posed in a book produced recently by Sir Christopher Foster, called Why Are We So Badly Governed?, which contains a lot of perceptive observations on all this. Is it not just because of the declining role of Parliament but because of a decline—a much wider question—in the candour, courage and quality of democratic political leadership, not only in this country but in other countries around the world? Is that being reflected and entrenched in the diminishing role of Parliament? What is it—and this again reflects the question posed by the noble Lord—that makes it so hard for us in today's democracies to carry through those changes that many citizens and many Members of this House know in their hearts to be necessary, on the questions that he identified, such as climate change, nuclear energy and retirement age? We all know that those questions are crying out for earnest, candid address; why does it not happen?
	I was delighted to rediscover a quote that I once used in a party conference speech. It is an observation almost 150 years old by Walter Bagehot, at the time of our first major step towards universal suffrage, the 1867 Reform Bill. He said that he could conceive of nothing more corrupt than that two combinations of well taught and rich men—noble Baronesses must forgive me, as he was talking about the 19th century—should compete for the support of the working man and promise to do as he likes, if only he would tell them what it is. That is an apt definition, from a long time ago, of focus group politics. In effect, he was forewarning us about the kind of thinking that has caused so many things to happen, and not just here. Why has the European Union failed to implement the Lisbon agenda? Similar fears stand in the way of candour in that regard.
	We do not have to go on proving Bagehot right. As the noble Lord said—to requote his quotation—democracy is government by explanation, and we have to understand that democracy is a two-way process. I hope that I may be forgiven for returning us to the issue, but there is ample room—as I believe the government led by my noble friend Lady Thatcher demonstrated—for courageous political leadership in interpreting the nation's mood. We had one advantage in our favour at the time when we were doing those difficult things, in that almost everyone realised that the nation was in the last chance saloon. But it is possible to identify what is necessary, expound it and go ahead with doing it.
	Political leaders need to identify, with as wide a consensus as possible, the way ahead, which is often in truth the only way however unpopular it might be, and to persuade people why they have to follow that road. That is at the heart of the credibility of Parliament and politics. Public opinion needs to be persuaded and not spun; it needs to be led and not fed. That is the right way, the best way and the only way towards "a more effective Parliament", to quote the first sentence, and towards the subject of today's debate, wider participation in the political process.

Lord Holme of Cheltenham: My Lords, I start by adding my thanks to the noble Baroness for honouring the commitment she made to this House in an earlier debate on this important topic. We are all most grateful.
	As the Hansard Society has the unusual distinction of seeing its name on the Order Paper, as chairman of the society, I shall talk for a moment about what we do and why we commissioned this important report. The Hansard Society is, in a real sense, Parliament's own NGO and Parliament's own charity. Our mission is to bring Parliament closer to people and people closer to Parliament—the very two-way process that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, has just spoken about. We work inside Parliament with those who seek to modernise this venerable institution and make it more relevant and accessible to the citizen. Outside Parliament, we have a wide range of projects, which many noble Lords will have come across, from working with schools—not least in making MPs' visits less of an ego trip and more useful—to conducting mock elections on a massive scale, to working with disadvantaged and excluded young people—the parts of the electorate that the normal system does not seem to reach—to experimenting with e-democracy and new technology.
	Some three years ago we first identified the real gap in understanding of what Parliament does and decided to set up a commission to consider how communication of our role in Parliament could be better achieved. Over the years the Hansard Society has used those special commissions, which in their authoritative membership and way of working are not unlike the old Royal Commissions—which are sadly no more—to deliberate and report on matters of political and parliamentary moment. I think of the commission on electoral reform, chaired by the late Lord Blake 30 years ago. Most of the chairs of these commissions either already are or end up in the House of Lords. There was the Rippon commission, chaired by Lord Rippon, which produced the report Making the Law; there was Women at the Top, the commission chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, although at that point she was not a noble Baroness; the Newton commission, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Newton, on parliamentary scrutiny, two or three years ago; and several others.
	At worst, the reports have educated people and changed the terms of debate. At best they have secured reform. I devoutly hope that the Puttnam commission proves to be one of those that secures reform. The report about which we are deliberating today is I believe one of the most powerful and valuable that has ever been produced under the society's aegis. I have to say—and I shall not spare the blushes of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam—that each commission has depended crucially for its success on its chairman. After I approached the noble Lord with the important issue of the communication of Parliament's work, he not only agreed to chair the commission but also threw himself with his usual astonishing energy, enthusiasm and leadership into developing the project. In terms of the cinema—and I hope that he will forgive my dragging the cinema into this debate—the Hansard Society may have been the producer of the report, but the noble Lord was most emphatically the director whose vision imbued the whole thing. He in turn was very well served by his fellow members of the commission—by his vice-chair, Jackie Ashley of the Guardian, and a fine panel of leading academics, media people and parliamentarians from both Houses. I am glad to see that my noble friend Lord Tyler, who was then an MP and who was a member of the commission, will be speaking this afternoon. We are also very grateful for the support of Ofcom in getting the commission going—and I am glad to see that the noble Lord, Lord Currie, is present—and for the help of the BBC and Channel 4.
	I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, would agree that the commission is not and does not purport to be a comprehensive blueprint. It does not have all the answers about a disengaged public and a superficial media, but it does suggest the first vital steps out of this impasse that we are in of disenchantment, falling turnout and a pervasive contempt for political and parliamentary life. We need what the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, called a step change. There have been repeated polls and surveys, and the evidence from them is clear: as the noble Lord said, people are interested in issues, but ignorant and suspicious of the political process. Although a majority of people respect their individual Member of Parliament—and that is something to build on—they distrust politicians in general. They also believe, for instance, that the media have more power than the Prime Minister or the Civil Service or Parliament; and indeed, judging from research, there is a hopeless muddle in public perceptions between Parliament and government. They are confabulated in the popular mind.
	So wherever separation of powers exists in the British constitution—and sometimes it is quite difficult to find—it is certainly not in the minds of our fellow citizens. You could argue that their instinct, if not their information, is very good, because Parliament in its role of producing good legislation and in holding power accountable is excessively responsive to the Executive and insufficiently responsive to the citizen. I wonder how realistic it is to expect people to respect Parliament if Parliament so often does not seem to respect itself and its own crucial role.
	A report was published earlier this week, which many of your Lordships may have seen or read about, by the House of Lords Select Committee on the BBC Charter Review, of which I and my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter were members. It noted that there were three challenges for the BBC, another great British institution: the accuracy of its reporting and its journalistic editorial independence; the development of new technologies and the digital revolution; and the increasing emphasis on, and need for, more rigorous systems of corporate governance.
	There are some striking resemblances between the needs of the BBC and those of Parliament: independence from government, so that the public can distinguish between the different arms of our constitution; our ability as a legislature to embrace these new technologies and the digital revolution as a way of getting greater public engagement; and our own systems of governance and regulation in terms of communicating with society.
	In the Communications Act we succeeded in getting an amendment to ensure that public service broadcasters have an obligation to promote civic understanding. That standard ought to be applied to Parliament as well. How good are we at promoting civic understanding? It is not enough for us to inform the public about what we do; we must enhance the understanding of what we do, and of democracy itself.
	Finally, in doing that, we desperately need the constructive help of everyone in the media. The Puttnam commission was perhaps a little gentle with the media, but I do not propose to be quite so gentle. We need the help of Ofcom as regulator, which has clear duties laid upon it on our behalf. We need the help of the BBC and the other public service broadcasters, and greater help and responsibility from the press and the rest of the media. I would say to the media who report our work here, or too often do not do so on a serious basis, that if Parliament can remove the beam from its eye—and, as the Puttnam report indicates, there is indeed a substantial beam to be removed—what about the media removing the mote from its own? They should remember that we in this country are all citizens who live in communities, part of a society in whose future we all have a stake, and not just to be treated as consumers and viewers.
	Here is an example of good coverage. "Today in Parliament" shares a birthday with the Hansard Society. We are both 60 years old. I cannot help thinking that if the BBC in particular and the media in general could recognise, as both these institutions do, that you do not have to be dull to be worth while, and that you can be sprightly even if you are mature in years, we could make the next 60 years a time of democratic renewal and of parliamentary renaissance.

The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, I congratulate all the authors of the Hansard Society report. I accept its broad analysis. I think we all accept that voter apathy has set in, and that the public have inclined towards single-issue campaigning at the expense of full-frontal democracy. This process will continue until Parliament is made more accessible and transparent. I fear, however, that much of the change suggested is about representation itself, and therefore goes beyond the strict mandate of this report.
	My own political education was gained almost entirely through non-governmental organisations, which is now a much more popular route into politics. As a young man I only ventured once or twice into the House of Commons to hear my father speak in debates which I found frankly rather obscure. Once elected under our four-year system, MPs are really a law unto themselves, and subject to the Whip. Yesterday's outburst of Back-Bench freedom was an encouraging exception.
	I doubt whether action on any of these recommendations will attract the voters back, but I think that they will make Parliament more accessible to those who already take an interest. I will mention sixth formers in particular. In this sense, the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, is handing Parliament a lifeline, as he just implied himself.
	More transparency in procedure and a language review would help. At first sight this looks like a back door into reform of working practices, but it is a fair point that parliamentary language and procedure could be made more digestible and intelligible. Here I do not quite agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe. The endless repetition of titles in both Houses could be simplified without loss of elegance or courtesy, and the labyrinthine procedures surrounding Private Members' Bills and the like could be removed. As suggested, a Joint Committee could at least consider this while reviewing communications strategy. These points have been made before; in fact, the appendices of previous reports are rather daunting. These issues should be dealt with.
	I hesitate when it comes to the recommendation of a single communications department. The Lords could never agree to unite both Houses in one central voice of Parliament which the Commons would always dominate. To maintain the present balance we must surely keep the two voices harmonious but distinct. However, to achieve even harmony will require a joint communications strategy and a Joint Committee, as well as a strengthening of the present loose structure—of which I have some experience—in which rubber stamps seem to be the most practical form of decision-making.
	I have some sympathy with those who would like to improve the media's access to Parliament—though I will not enter the "motes and beams" debate provoked by the noble Lord, Lord Holme—having some personal experience of the frustrations of camera crews sent upstairs to film interviews that they really wanted outside the Members' rooms. We do not have adequate facilities for the media. Yet there is a real risk of the media occasionally interfering with normal business, and, yes, our somewhat traditional way of life.
	I want, though, to concentrate on recommendations for education, and here, like others, I very much look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. Almost exactly 10 years ago, my maiden speech dealt with citizenship, awareness of world issues, the Crick report and changes in the key stage 3 curriculum, where there has been a lot of progress under this Government. In this context, the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, who is otherwise engaged today, has made an enormous contribution.
	I still feel passionately, with the British Youth Council, that young people need more opportunities to experience the real world in relation to their education. The UK Youth Parliament, launched six years ago with the help of LEAs, has made a tremendous start. It has adopted admirable aims, such as raising awareness of the situation of asylum seekers, erasing misconceptions and better integrating them into the community.
	The UNA—the United Nations Association—has also had notable success with its model UNs, which now benefit some 200,000 young people a year. I spent a morning with the one at Leeds University, and was impressed by the commitment of all those involved. There was an idea that each student should be able to advocate a country other than their own. The only country that was an exception was Israel—apparently only an Israeli student was able to fill that role, and he did so very well.
	Many of these groups, even sixth-form groups, have their own websites. Our own website, which is sadly still under construction, could learn a great deal from looking at them and exploring their ideas.
	I support the suggestion that we have a designated debating chamber for young people in the vicinity of Parliament, if not in the Palace itself. I hope the Lord President will encourage this idea. It would give great encouragement to schools and societies promoting citizenship, and to any other young people who take political life seriously—and there are many of them. I realise that committee rooms are in demand, but perhaps this arrangement could be formalised as part of the work of the Education Unit. The unit itself, although being expanded, consists of only six people who have to manage 10,000 young people every year. It needs strengthening, and I hope the House of Lords, which helps to fund it, will itself become more involved in implementing these ideas.
	I am not one of those who thinks that all young people ought to have this experience because not all of them want it or need it. In most schools it is usually a committed group of sixth formers. I invited one of them to come in and share some ideas only last week. He is 17 and comes from a north London school. He thinks that school politics could be made much more interesting. I shall quote him at some length. He says:
	"The youth of today feel disconnected with politicians, because they have received a completely different education from most MPs and Peers and they have different attitudes towards life in general. Many young people from poor backgrounds feel angry and a little patronised. They therefore divert their anger towards politicians who are seen as the enforcers of the laws and regulations which are keeping them down the social political and economic ladder.
	However there are not enough young people interested in politics. Maybe it would help if there were workshops available to both parents and young people so that they could learn and discuss together.
	Politics needs to become exciting again. Maybe every school should be visited by an MP or politician at some stage. When an MP meets people face to face and answers questions, they feel they can respond to things happening in Parliament. MPs could ask the opinion of students in their constituency on important issues such as the Iraq war".
	Finally, this student says:
	"Activities such as Model UNs . . . are the best way of involving young people in politics. If these could be in the main parliament building it would add to the atmosphere and realism of the activity, and people might take it a lot more seriously than at school".
	What this young man did not say is that politicians could do more themselves to appeal to young people and undergo some form of training, as the report advocates. This is, of course, a matter for the two Houses, but the Government's support would be invaluable.

Baroness Morris of Yardley: My Lords, if it does not sound something of a contradiction in terms it is 13 years since I last made a maiden speech in Parliament. I certainly feel 13 years older; I am yet to feel 13 years wiser, but I hope very much that listening to debates in your Lordships' House, certainly from what I have heard so far, will enable me to feel that extra wisdom in the, I hope, not too distant future.
	It is a privilege to sit in the House of Lords, as it was a privilege to sit in the House of Commons representing my constituency of Yardley in the city of Birmingham, and to have served in two government departments. In the contributions that I shall make in the House of Lords I very much want to reflect the experiences that I had there as a Minister, and the opportunities I had to meet so many people. Parliament is certainly a great place for learning. In view of the subject of today's debate, it should also be a good place in which to teach people about what we do.
	In the context of this debate it is my contact with my constituents—over 100,000 people in the constituency of Yardley—that most informs my views regarding what I want to say today. There are two matching myths around at the moment. They are growing with such strength that they are almost becoming an accepted part of our democracy. The first myth is that Parliament, and what we discuss here, is no longer relevant to people's lives. The second almost matching myth is that people are not interested in politics. Nothing could be further from the truth. Neither of those things reflects the health of our democracy or what people think regarding their everyday lives. That was brought home to me strongly in my experience as a local constituency Member of Parliament.
	The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, referred to advice bureaux that Members of Parliament will hold this weekend. Time and time again when I held advice bureaux it struck me that the hopes, concerns, aspirations, the matters that people felt pleased about and the matters that people worried about in their lives, their families' lives and their communities' lives, were matters on which we took decisions. They were the bread-and-butter matters that we tackled in Parliament every day. Every time constituents were worried about a school, or wanted a nursery place for their young child, or had a concern that they did not receive hospital treatment as quickly as they should, they were talking about politics. They were engaging with politics as the latter affected their lives and those of their families. Noble Lords have mentioned my next point. Every poll that is conducted does not tell us that people are not interested in politics; they tell us that more people are interested in political activity and in the substance of politics than ever before.
	The one group that is most interested in politics is young people. Part of the myth which is going around is that we are bringing up a generation who are not interested in what happens to their country or in the nature of politics. There is no evidence to indicate that that is the case. However, the dilemma is that while it is true that people are interested in politics and in what happens to them, that is matched by an increasing disengagement from the institutions which drive political change; that is, our Houses of Parliament, our House of Commons and our House of Lords, and from the political parties, which are a cornerstone—and have been for a very long time—of our nation's democracy.
	In my view the first step is to accept that the fault is ours and not that of the people. Therefore, it is our responsibility to drive the change to a culture that again reunites the people's interest and their passion for politics, because politics affects their lives, with the institutions that are charged with delivering politics in our democracy. I do not want to suggest that this is a simple problem; it is not, it is very complex. Nor do I want to suggest that I have all the answers, because I do not. However, I shall refer to one or two very important points in the report.
	I welcome the report and congratulate the Hansard Society on producing it and on the work that it has done over the years. I also congratulate and thank my noble friend Lord Puttnam for chairing the commission with the energy, commitment and enthusiasm that he brings to whatever he does. The report's strength is that it has a very clear focus on a particular aspect of our democracy. It concerns how we communicate with the people we serve. Another strength, which I believe has been mentioned, is that it brought together politicians and journalists. This is a three-way relationship. In my view political journalists have just as much responsibility for the health of our democracy as Members of the House of Lords and Members of the House of Commons. But whatever the nature of the relationship between politicians and journalists, neither of us would have any reason for existing if it was not for the people that we both should serve. A huge strength of the commission was that it engaged with both those groups. Its recommendations therefore address broadcasting and journalism and what we do in this House.
	I share with the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, the sense of urgency with regard to the report. If we were to implement every recommendation and if we were to surprise ourselves and do it within the next year, the sad fact is that we would just about catch up with other institutions which play an important part in the life of society. Parliament, the house of democracy, should lead in that regard.
	I agree with tradition. I am immensely proud of the traditions of the Houses of Parliament. When I have visitors I enjoy behaving rather like a tourist guide. That part of our history explains a lot about how we deal with our present. However, that pride in tradition should never ever prevent us changing to face the future. I suspect that there is still a tendency to consider that tradition holds us back whereas we should respect it but move forward.
	As I made notes for this speech I reflected that if other institutions did as badly as we do as regards communication with the public, they would be berated. If there was something called Offgov or Offparliament—although I do not by any means wish that that were the case—we would be in serious special measures on account of serious weaknesses. Any school that did not communicate with parents on a regular basis, did not explain to them the nature of the national curriculum or listen to what parents had to say about the quality of education that the school was delivering to their children, would be in special measures and a new head would be parachuted in. Any hospital that did not explain to its patients the nature of their treatment and the options that faced them would barely get one star in the performance tables. That is how bad we are. That is how much still needs to be done.
	Like other noble Lords who have spoken in the debate, I want to reflect on the importance of the report for young people and the next generation. Almost everyone who will vote for the first time at the next general election has grown up in the Internet age. They take as their right, as the way of the world, personalised forms of communication. That is just part of their everyday lives. The truth is that our young people, even those who are not of the age to vote, find it easier to communicate directly in real time with people they do not know on any continent of the world than they would to communicate with a Member of this House. This generation of young people is not used to having one-way communication; they are used to a form of communication that allows them to reply in a very short time. Referring to Parliament, my noble friend Lord Puttnam talks in his foreword to the report about,
	"the enormous amount that remains to be done in closing the communication gap between itself and the electorate".
	I could not agree more. The report goes on in clear terms to outline the consequences:
	"In the 21st century institutions that do not communicate fail".
	The report asks us to do no more than we ask of other institutions who serve our collective public. They do that, so we should make changes so that we can keep faith with the people who put us in business.
	I particularly welcome some of the recommendations. Recommendations 18, 20 and 21, on education, would mean that we could play our part in citizenship and the work that we need to do in bringing on the next generation of children in a way that other institutions are already doing. Recommendation 30 enhances the media's ability to report Parliament in a relevant way, and Recommendation 1 is the means to make it happen.
	I conclude by again thanking the committee for producing this report, which enables us to move forward. But we have to take the initiative. I hope that in the not-too-distant future the next debate on the topic might reflect on the progress that we have made since the launch of the report.

Lord Jopling: My Lords, before I begin my allotted time it gives me huge pleasure to congratulate the noble Baroness on her most thoughtful maiden speech. She has brought her experience of media matters as a former Minister in DCMS, but we shall of course look forward to her informing and entertaining us in future with what she is better known for—her experience as a former teacher and former Secretary of State for Education. She is the third member of her family with whom I have had the pleasure of serving in another place. It was a great pleasure a few moments ago to see my old friend, her uncle Alf, standing at the Bar of the House listening to her maiden speech. She comes from a very distinguished parliamentary family, and I hope that she will not be offended if I were to call it one of our most distinguished parliamentary dynasties. We look forward to hearing from her again on many occasions.
	I welcome the opportunity to debate the report that the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, has produced. I have had a long interest in the matters of parliamentary modernisation and effectiveness. I was an early advocate of the Select Committee system in another place. I served on two of the Crossman Select Committees in the 1960s, and I negotiated with the Opposition in setting up the current departmental Select Committees, which have done so much to extend and improve parliamentary scrutiny. Again, in 1991, I had the great privilege of being the chairman of the Select Committee on sittings of the House in another place, which led to a good many changes, for instance the ending of the absurd nonsense of debating the Consolidated Fund Bill several times a year through the night into the following morning.
	My first reaction to the report was that it should be seen in the context of the composition of what is called the "commission", although I am not sure of the difference between a commission and a committee. Over half the members of the commission had a media background, whereas less than a third were active parliamentarians, which seemed somewhat skewed. Rather like a referendum if you know the answer you want you can pitch the question to get it. I suspect there might be just a little bit of that here. I understand why the media always press for greater access and transparency. It is only natural in this commission with this membership that many of the proposals are slanted for exactly that. We need to assess the report both in terms of what the media want and what is best for the system of parliamentary government. Those two things do not always fit together.
	Incidentally, in the section of the report with recommendations under the chapter headed "Media coverage of Parliament" on page 81, I notice that there are many lectures handed out to the BBC but there is very little advice given to the press. I often think that in terms of reporting Parliament the press need a good many more lessons than the BBC. The lack of interest shown by the press and broadcasters in Parliament leads us to many of our current problems. I have often despaired over the years at the situation where an excellent Select Committee report, which is often acclaimed by the people over whom it has effect, is totally ignored by the media, the press in particular, at the expense of trivia. An example is the Westminster Dog of the Year competition. The coverage given to trivia of that sort at the expense of dealing with Select Committee reports is one of the tragedies of modern Parliament.
	On communications, I agree with a great many of the proposals in the report. I agree with my noble and learned friend Lord Howe that there is a vast and urgent job to do in improving parliamentary communications. The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, referred to the fact that it would be a huge step forward if we had a proper, modern visitor centre attached to this House, whether beyond Black Rod's Garden or somewhere between Westminster Hall and the road. That would deal with a great many of the points in the report that refer to young people. I am really not sure about having children in the Chamber during the Recesses. I understand that the replica of the House of Commons Chamber that used to be on the premises of Granada television, which they let out for tours, was dismantled some years ago. Whether that was because of lack of interest I do not know.
	It is not necessary to tamper with anything simply because it smacks of tradition. The report says that we should no longer refer to strangers. When I was a Member of another place, my constituents were tickled to death by being described as strangers. Let us remember the old saying that tradition is a good servant but a bad master.
	Of course government can govern only by the consent of Parliament, but I question some of the recommendations to transfer some decision-making from Front Bench to Back Bench. Would Members of the House of Commons or your Lordships' House queue up to stand for election as members of the commission at the other end, or at this end as members of the House Committee? I rather think that they would not. Some people say that the membership of Select Committees should be decided not by the Whips but by election. That might be a good idea for committees on defence or foreign affairs, where there would certainly be a long queue. However, I remember from a former incarnation as a government Chief Whip at the other end that, for some Select Committees, one would have been pushed to find anybody to stand for election at all. I happen to be a member of the august Select Committee on Merits of Statutory Instruments; frankly, I do it only as a favour to the noble Lord the Chief Whip, and I do not know anyone else who would wish to stand in the circumstances.
	We must be realistic in our Parliament. Unlike the parliament of the United States, we do not have one based on divided powers. Under our system, it is inevitable that Parliament is government-driven, with the consent of Back-Benchers and the opposition parties, of course.
	Finally, I want to say something as the noble Baroness the Leader of the House has been kind enough to come here. There is a need for governments to regain the respect for Parliament that they had in the past. I am sure that she knows precisely what I am going to say. One of her great failings as Leader of the House—likewise her predecessor—has been the lamentable way in which government departments treat this House in answering Questions. I shall give one example about which I have tabled a Question, which again is awaiting a reply. Parliamentary Questions are supposed to be answered in two weeks. Last week, we had a Question to the Home Office that had been down for 18 weeks. It was tabled in June and had still not been answered. The noble Baroness keeps telling us that she is doing her best; she will have to do a great deal better. That is simply one example of the ways in which governments successively have had less and less respect for Parliament. Parliament will get much more respect in the country if it is respected much better by government.

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: My Lords, I add my congratulations to those given to the noble Baroness on her excellent maiden speech. I have long been an admirer of hers. Her style as an MP and Cabinet Minister was distinguished by her understanding of the need to do exactly what the report says—to connect.
	I too am grateful for the opportunity provided by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, to debate this extremely important topic. As has been said by many other noble Lords, people out there feel alienated from the political process, and it is essential that we remedy it. Most worryingly, according to a MORI survey, that alienation particularly affects young people. Only 37 per cent of people aged 18 to 24 voted in 2005. That was the only category by age in which turnout actually fell between the two most recent elections.
	The report of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, confirms that people are not just confused but plain ignorant about what happens at Westminster, stating that:
	"Most of the population simply do not have a clue about how Parliament works or what our MPs do".
	The important principle behind the report—made clear in the ironic title, Members Only? Parliament in the Public Eye—is that the public have the right to know what goes on in Parliament and to participate in its proceedings, and that it is Parliament that should actively seek to involve the electorate if we are to succeed in reconnecting with them.
	I want to talk particularly about television coverage of the Palace of Westminster. On that matter, I have the luxury of having been involved on both sides—in fact, probably three sides if that is possible, having been a journalist, a spin doctor, and now a politician. Although I agree with my noble friend Lord Holme that the messenger is not blameless, I know from experience that Parliament does not make it easy for the message to be relayed, and it is on that that I will concentrate.
	As editor of Channel 4's "A Week in Politics" in the mid-1990s, a very important part of my brief was to cover the Houses of Parliament. In those days, broadcasters were still excited by the access that televising of Parliament had brought, and we were expected to translate what was going on in the Committee Rooms and Chambers of both Houses into appealing TV. Largely due to the wit and wisdom of Andrew Rawnsley and the late, much-missed Vincent Hanna, we did. However, we were not helped by the contents of a file that I was given to read on taking the job called The Chamber's Rules of Coverage. It contained a number of very specific restrictions, one of which is the ban on cutaways mentioned in the noble Lord's report. I find it astonishing that it is not thought okay for the public to witness politicians reacting to what their colleagues are saying.
	I happen to have noticed, tucked in front of me here, a Sudoku. Every now and then, maybe there will be a cutaway of a politician doing a Sudoku—I apologise to my noble friend whom I have outed—but that would not have disastrous consequences. I do not know whether everyone knows it, but we in this House are the subject of a gentle experiment to see whether allowing reaction shots will provoke catastrophe. The rules circumscribe what can be shown. In doing so, they deny Parliament any sense of life. Television coverage is not allowed to reflect the way this place really is. Frankly, the rules make it boring to watch. When people visit the Palace of Westminster, I find that they are excited, exhilarated and surprised, saying, "I didn't expect it to be like this—it doesn't look like this on television". How perverse to pursue a policy of underselling such a great asset.
	The other way in which this place needs to change is over access, about which there is frankly a culture of "no". One of the most exciting and important events to have occurred within these walls recently was the Conservative leadership election, but no television camera was allowed to cover it. Instead, we had the political editors rushing to their fixed spot in Central Lobby to relay information to the public. Why that spoon feeding, with the inevitable spin attached? Why could the public not experience the reality more directly—the drama, the euphoria, the dejection, even the ejection of gatecrasher Edwina Currie once fellow Tories remembered that she was no longer a MP, which I read about in the newspaper. How much more likely we are to draw people into the political story if they can see events unfold, rather than retold.
	And what historic value there could be. How I wished, when I was making a series on Margaret Thatcher, that there had been footage from that same corridor of her astonishing victory over Ted Heath, to bring alive the stories of those who remembered it. One MP told me how he and Airey Neave ran along the corridor to the room where she was to break the news. We had to cover that with our camera running down the corridor, rather like something out of a horror movie, whereas I was making a documentary.
	A more recent historic moment was the all-night sitting on the anti-terror Bill last March. By being denied access to the human story, Andrew Marr stated in this report:
	"Television viewers were cheated of perhaps the best demonstration of parliamentary democracy doing what it should that there has been for decades".
	People love going backstage, but we do not allow them to do so here, and it is a stage that belongs to them as just as much as to the politicians.
	Of course there have to be rules about coverage, as the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, mentioned, but at the moment they are over-restrictive and sometimes ridiculous. The political editor of the BBC Nick Robinson told me that he was recently reprimanded when reporting from Central Lobby for allowing his toes to cross a line that he did not know existed. And there must be rules on access. Politicians, like everyone in their workplace, need privacy, but the default position should not be "No". I believe that the precedent argument is now being replaced with the security one, but the fact is that it has always been "No". As the distinguished former Liberal Prime Minister, HH Asquith, once observed:
	"There is no more striking illustration of the immobility of British institutions than the House of Commons".
	I think that it is time that we proved him wrong—on that, anyway.
	I wholeheartedly support the report's conclusion that a new communications department is needed, pursuing an enlightened, integrated communications strategy. This is a place that deserves a better press, both from the press and the public, but to get it we have to loosen up.

Lord Currie of Marylebone: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, on securing this debate and thank him, his very distinguished commission and the Hansard Society for this report. Speaking as the chairman of Ofcom, I was pleased that Ofcom was able to play a role in sponsoring and supporting the work of the commission. It has done an excellent job in looking at the relationships between the public, politics and the media, and I support the report's recommendations, which we urgently need to consider adopting.
	I do not need to remind noble Lords that the citizen is at the focus of all that we do at Ofcom. We debated that long and hard during the passage of the Communications Bill and the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, played a special role, with others, in placing the obligation to look after the citizen at the heart of what we do. This report takes the same position—that we have a somewhat alienated public and that we need absolutely to put the citizen back at the heart of what we do in Parliament to make a start on reconnecting with the public.
	When we set up Ofcom, we thought long and hard about how we should communicate with citizens, consumers and the general public. We did that for three principal reasons. First, if we had a communications regulator that communicated badly, it would quickly become a laughing stock. Secondly, Parliament rightly placed considerable obligations on us to be transparent and open in all that we do, and to explain what we do in as clear a way as possible. Thirdly, I believe that the authority and reputation of a regulator is crucially dependent on communicating effectively so that its work is understood. That gives us many significant influences that go beyond the formal powers with which Parliament has vested us.
	So we have worked hard to communicate what we do. In all our major reports concerning communication with citizens and consumers on the key issues, we aim to produce a plain-English version that is crystal-marked by the Plain English Campaign. In even the more complex areas of spectrum that are very technical, we seek to explain in simple terms. I am sure that we are not wholly successful in our endeavour to explain clearly, but it seems to me that that urgency of communication, that clarity of explanation, is something that we in Parliament should also seek to do. We often have highly technical debates about complex issues, but those issues can be communicated in more simple and straightforward ways.
	At Ofcom, we reduced the size of our communications department from the size that we inherited from the former five separate regulators, but we have greatly enhanced the quality of our communications department. The quality of people in the communications area is fundamental to getting messages across. The report makes important recommendations with regard to what we as individual parliamentarians could do in both Houses and to what we can do as an institution. We should pursue that as a matter of urgency.
	In our review of public service broadcasters, we at Ofcom acknowledge the need for PSB providers to ensure that their content responds to the needs of modern British society, and engages with people. As the noble Lord, Lord Holme, pointed out, the Communications Act requires public service broadcasters to enhance civic understanding of the democratic process. Our recent research into attitudes to television coverage of the election produced some interesting results. The general view was that that coverage was "quite" well done or "very" well-done. But there was a marked contrast with the views of 18 to 24 year-olds. In general, the young felt that television did not explain party policies and party politics at all well.
	The one thing I have learnt in the communications area is that if we want to see the future, we should observe the behaviour of the young. They are doing now what all or most of us will be doing in five years' time. We must focus on communicating to the young, who are the current voters, and, indeed, to those below voting age, to ensure that our messages are getting across. We need to consider how we can make use of new technology more effectively. Increasingly, the young obtain their information in an ambient way. They do not sit down and watch news bulletins, they gather news from many different sources. Increasingly, they obtain such information on the move, and the question of content via the mobile attracts huge commercial interest. We as an institution need to take that seriously. Could parliamentary highlights be flashed on your mobile in a similar manner to highlights of football games?
	Ubiquitous digital connectivity makes many things possible. The way in which we communicate both ways can be hugely enhanced in this world of instant connectivity. I receive many e-mails on Ofcom business, to which I am able with my Blackberry to respond quickly. We have online chat rooms at my business school for our alumni and students that allow us to keep our finger on the pulse of what people are thinking. Could we set up parliamentary chat rooms for similar purposes?
	The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, referred to Amazon. Perhaps I may refer to another online phenomenon which I think is relevant. The online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, is maintained by ordinary people. It is, if you like, a democratic encyclopaedia. Economists might ask why people would want to keep it accurate and up-to-date and why they would not corrupt it. The answer is that most people seem to have a wish to maintain that type of social phenomenon online. Perhaps there are ways in which we could use the same kind of phenomenon to aggregate the views of ordinary people in innovative ways, using the new technology to enhance what we are doing. If we do not look ahead in the use of technology, we will surely fall behind.
	Therefore, I make two pleas. The first is that we communicate better and more effectively, and the second is that we ensure that we use all the technology, including the new technology that is coming down the road towards us.
	Communication cannot be at the sidelines of what we do here in Parliament. It must be at the forefront, and that is why Ofcom was delighted to be associated with this project from the outset. Hence, the report provides us with important ways forward which we should take very seriously.

Lord Howarth of Newport: My Lords, I add my voice to the chorus of thanks to my noble friend Lord Puttnam and his fellow commissioners and to the Hansard Society for their informative, thoughtful and important study. I also, with enthusiasm, congratulate my noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley on her maiden speech. We were both Members of Parliament representing West Midlands constituencies and I vividly remember that, shortly after she entered Parliament, we found ourselves sharing a platform. As I listened to her speak, I thought, "This person is interesting, eloquent, reasonable and decent". That was in 1987. By 1997, through the vicissitudes of politics, we found ourselves as fellow junior Ministers in the Department for Education and Employment, and my appreciation of her political and human qualities could only grow. Today, her speech was interesting, eloquent, reasonable and decent. As we are debating the reputation of Parliament, perhaps I may also say that the manner in which she held, and left, high office did much for the esteem of politicians.
	The analysis in the report of disaffection and disconnection from formal political processes, particularly on the part of young people, can only intensify the concerns that most of us already have. If we see a continuation of the collapse of participation in elections by those who are eligible to vote for the first time—only about a third of them voted on the last occasion—then we might well fear that the writing is on the wall for parliamentary democracy in Britain.
	I shall talk about Parliament rather than the wider issues of participation in politics and, in particular, about the House of Commons because I think that that is the main subject of the document. It would require higher levels of enlightenment than we can foresee for the wise and well tempered debates and the searching scrutiny that occur in your Lordships' House to take the place that they deserve in the productions of the media.
	The report is persuasive in making the case that Parliament needs to be more coherently managed, that it needs to do better in setting out its stall to the public, and that it should have a unified communications department, communications strategy and realistic communications budget. It exposes absurdities and rightly argues for organisational reform and, in particular, for the liberalisation of rules about broadcasting. Of course Parliament should have an exemplary website; of course Parliament should use information technology to promote interactivity between Parliament and people; of course we should strengthen our education unit; and of course the Westminster Parliament should not be too proud to learn from the Scottish Parliament—out of the mouths of very babes and sucklings—about its admirable procedures in relation to petitions, including e-petitions.
	But members of the commission, who are sensible people, will not have been starry-eyed about how much all this can achieve. How far will the public make a distinction between Parliament as an institution, politics, the political parties, political personalities and the Government? I suspect that, in the public understanding, Parliament is a shorthand term for politics in Westminster—for what goes on in the parliamentary bear pit and thereabouts.
	If Parliament as an institution fails to do a good job, no amount of public relations will convince our sceptical citizens that the institution is in good health. The Welsh Assembly has put into practice many of the policies that the commission recommends for us, but I am not yet aware that the communications strategy of the Welsh Assembly has kindled a love affair between the people of Wales and their Assembly. And I would be wary if we were to proliferate communications professionals in this place—a few, yes, but good ones are very hard to find.
	So I enter those reservations, but I favour a serious attempt to make Parliament transparent and accessible. It is at the very least discourteous and unwise that we should be impenetrable to those whom we serve. So I favour more extensive televising and freer broadcasting of Parliament, both in its formal and informal aspects, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, recommended to us. Perhaps the most important reason why I believe it would be worth while is not so much that it will transform public attitudes but that I think that that kind of monitoring will encourage Parliament to sharpen up its act where it is defective.
	Parliament is always in the thick of a variety of power struggles. How those are played out will more powerfully condition perceptions of Parliament than any public relations strategy that Parliament may adopt. Parliament is, after all, the principal arena in which the competing interests and aspirations of our people are expressed and resolved, and the processes whereby that occurs are mainly humdrum, complex and lengthy. It is very hard to see how they can be presented appealingly. If, as the commission proposes, we are to have a review of procedures with a view to improving Parliament's capacity to communicate, then I think we should be very careful that we do not so simplify and truncate procedures that we throw the baby out with the bathwater, that we weaken scrutiny, that we enable the Government too easily to have their way and that we facilitate bad legislation.
	Parliament is often turbulent, and that provides drama and stories which the media relish. The public reaction is mixed: they are both fascinated and appalled by the clash and noise of lively parliamentary proceedings. We had to permit the broadcasting of Parliament; it would have been absurd for Parliament to have hidden from the 20th century's most powerful means of communication. But to what extent has the transmission of our adversarial dynamics—what some people call "yah boo politics"—into every home caused the people of this country to view Parliament more favourably?
	There is always a power struggle in Parliament between Front Bench and Back Bench and between Parliament and government. Because we do not have that separation of powers, that struggle occurs right within Parliament. When Parliament in its historical development challenged the Crown and eventually captured the Executive, it thereby enslaved itself all over again. Too many of today's career politicians are excessively willing slaves. So while I was happy to hear my noble friend say that the commission's report has received a good welcome from the Government, I think that we should watch this space because an independent and spirited Parliament is never convenient to government.
	Another set of struggles arises from the jealousy and competition between Westminster and Whitehall—in this united—and other institutions of our democracy, such as local government, devolved government and the European Union. The commission suggests that there should be a shared effort of communication, and that would indeed be desirable. But I am not sanguine that we shall create an enlightened trans-institutional seminar. I think that the public will continue to scratch their heads, remaining baffled about who is responsible for what between all these different organisations and about what is going on in this complex, charged interplay. So, while it would help if people understood more, the spectacle will never be easy or satisfying.
	The most naked and dangerous power struggle is that between Parliament and the media. Chapter 5 of the report quotes public expressions of anxiety about that. The report offers to encourage us by saying that the problem is primarily one of malfunction. The recommendations look forward to a media that works with Parliament to communicate effectively with the public.
	Will the criteria of news value of the media embrace the routines of Parliament, however worthy? The media will have their own agenda to form the political consciousness of the nation and to be arbiters of our public affairs. They prefer to please the public, to gratify the desire of freeborn Britons to grumble, to "cock a snook" and to give a kicking to authority, which is one of the reasons why there is such a fascination with Prime Minister's Question Time—for all the ambivalence of attitude to that ceremony. They will fabricate celebrities; they will parade scapegoats. We have sadly seen that during the course of this week. When they set out to destroy individual politicians, thereby further discrediting politics and Parliament, no communication strategy of Parliament will stop them.
	While I fully endorse the recommendations of the report, and while I know that good journalists are as worried as we are about the difficult and damaging state of relations between politics and the media, none of us sees our way through. In the long term, perhaps education will be the most important remedy and in the shorter term, better presentation. But the sources of our present discontents are varied and profound and so must be the reformation of our political culture and the rescuing of the centrality of Parliament.

Lord Norton of Louth: My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, on securing this debate and on the report that gives rise to it. I am extremely grateful to him for his opening comments about my own work. It is also a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, and to agree with the views that he expressed.
	As is clear from what has been said already, this is an extremely important debate. Parliament is the pivotal body in our political system. It is the one authoritative body that stands between government and the people. It is the body that sustains government, but it is also the body that calls government to account for its actions in between general elections. It is the body through which the people speak to government. This valuable report recognises that we have to address not only what Parliament does in relation to government but also how it communicates with the people. It is a two-way relationship. We have to consider how Parliament reaches the people. We also have to consider how the people reach Parliament.
	For people to pay attention to what Parliament is doing, Parliament has to be seen to be fulfilling the functions expected of it. If it is fulfilling important tasks, relevant tasks, then the media will pay more attention to it. I do not necessarily share the view embodied in this report about the terminology employed by the two Houses. I recognise that there is an issue here, but I do not regard it as crucial. What is vital, as my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon said, is the substance of what we do. The terminology employed in Select Committees is not particularly obscure or archaic. What is important is ensuring that the work of committees in both Houses is relevant and attracts media attention. One flows from the other.
	The report makes a number of important recommendations on how to communicate with people, but these, as the report stresses, must come as a consequence of a culture change within the Palace of Westminster. We still have a blinkered view of our relationship with those outside the institution. The media are still viewed with suspicion. They have been allowed into parts of the palace previously deemed off limits, but the attitude is still extremely restrictive. The more we allow the media into the palace, the greater will be the coverage of what we are doing.
	Media coverage is vital to ensure that people can see what we are doing. So too, increasingly, is our use of the Internet. The Parliament website is a major repository of data. It is invaluable for people like me. Yet, as the report makes clear, it is not geared to members of the public who want to know what is going on. Contrary to what many people think, people have not lost interest in politics. Rather, as has been said, their interest has been displaced, from mainstream party activity to issue-based activity. As we have heard, the website is not geared to those interested in issues. Although there have been some notable improvements, it remains based on the institutional structure of Parliament. If you are interested in, say, animal welfare, and look to see what Parliament has done in this area, you will likely give up in despair. I know, as I tried it this morning and that is exactly what I did. Not only does there need to be a radical redesign of the website; there also needs to be more central co-ordination. Perhaps the Leader of the House can confirm that, before the new website is introduced, there will be consultation to ensure that it meets the needs of people outside Westminster? Given that the communication should not simply be one-way, will there be an interactive capacity? I teach, in an MA online, that there is an interactivity which is core to that. It is not rocket science but it is essential.
	In terms of communicating with the public, we need to be more outgoing and entrepreneurial. Take this House. We have an excellent Information Office which produces first-class material. It publishes a booklet on the work of the House. The print run is 40,000. The number of visitors to the Palace of Westminster each year exceeds 400,000. Most of those visitors will leave with admiration for the building but, as my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon said, with no real understanding of what the institution does. The Information Office puts together information packs. These are excellent for students. If students visit the palace, we can give them the packs. If we go to schools and colleges, we can take packs with us to distribute. The material, however, deserves to be disseminated much more widely. The Information Office lacks the resources necessary to distribute it on a more extensive basis. This may seem a small matter, but it is illustrative of the problem we face. As this report states, what we do here is a public good worth investing in. We must change our attitude and ensure that the emphasis is on communicating effectively, not on penny-pinching. We must invest in communicating with the public.
	Similarly, we must ensure that people can communicate with us. I welcome what the report says on that. I agree that committees should go out more and take evidence from people in different parts of the United Kingdom. I have argued the case for petitions to be taken more seriously. Although petitions presented to the other place are now referred to the relevant departmental Select Committee, there is still a case for a dedicated petitions committee. Such a committee exists in the Scottish Parliament and in most parliaments of western Europe. As the Constitution Select Committee noted in its report last year, there is also a cogent case for committees engaging in more online consultation as well as commissioning opinion polls.
	It would be churlish if we did not acknowledge changes that have taken place in recent years—some of them have been extremely valuable. I am very impressed with the work that the Law Commission is doing in investigating the capacity for post-legislative scrutiny. However, we need to go further to reach a new plane. The health of the political system depends on us achieving that.
	The Leader of the House, in replying, can make a signal contribution by committing herself to achieving that necessary culture shift and by agreeing that we need a much more cohesive communications strategy within Parliament. Responsibility, as this reports makes clear, is too diverse. If that means knocking heads together, then so be it. We must put Parliament first.

Lord Tyler: My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Norton, because I have so often been stimulated by his views on these issues in the past. I am also delighted to have witnessed the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley. I know that Members of this House will recognise that she was held in huge respect for her integrity and judgment in the other place, and I am sure that that will now transfer here.
	I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, on this debate and on the fruitful leadership he gave to the commission on which I was delighted to serve. I want merely to emphasise and underline some of its findings and recommendations. First, as many noble Lords have said, it must be time to have a joint strategy for the whole of Parliament to communicate what we do in this building. That was identified by the Modernisation Committee in the other place as a real weakness. Surely, it must be time that the two Houses together demonstrated to British citizens not only what we are doing but how we intend to ensure that it is more visible and transparent. Surely, it must be a basic essential for a healthy parliamentary democracy in the 21st century that Parliament develops an effective communications strategy and also has an effective mechanism for its delivery. I wonder whether noble Lords have examined the organisation chart on page 33 of the report. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, will recall the difficulty with which we extracted that information from the officials in the House.
	The Group on Information for the Public—I wonder how many noble Lords are aware of the GIP—is composed only of officers of the two Houses. There is no Member involvement or Member ownership. I believe that without Member interest and accountability, this vital activity will never receive the resources it requires. Incidentally, I very much endorse the views earlier expressed about the Information Office in this House, which is a great deal more effective than its comparable organisation at the other end of the corridor. And of course this House pioneered the televising of debates. I hope that in this matter, too, we will be leading the other end of this building.
	Secondly, and flowing immediately from that lack of accountability, the commission believes that the priorities for expenditure need to be reassessed urgently. Spending many millions of pounds on a super visitors' centre, which has been mentioned, will be greatly appreciated by visitors from Tokyo and Texas. But, frankly, I do not believe that it will be much help to British students of politics of all ages, from Tintagel in Cornwall to Tayside in Scotland, who find it extremely difficult to come to London at all during their studies or when they are interested in an issue that arises here. Surely, it would be far more cost-effective to ensure that we take advantage of a unique opportunity to re-engage the electorate with the new electronic communication tool that is to hand—a really effective website. I entirely endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Norton, said about that.
	Incidentally, such a website also provides an unrepeatable chance of reducing our reliance on the conventional media to communicate what Parliament is doing. The distinguished journalists on our commission, to whom reference has been made, warned us that editors are rather better at dishing out advice than they are at taking it. We were therefore told that perhaps we should concentrate on what we are doing rather than concentrating too much on the media. In any case, there never was a golden age when parliamentary debates were assiduously followed by huge numbers of our fellow citizens. The daily full report in the Times was read by an elite sitting in leather chairs in London clubs. Today, we have a real opportunity, with the electronic communication to hand, to change that and to make it a public interest. Already, the Parliament Channel and the parliamentary website have a far larger audience than ever existed in the written press and they far outnumber those who ever bought Hansard.
	Thirdly, like other noble Lords, I believe that our website is woefully inadequate. It totally fails to keep up with technological change or public expectation. In that context, we must move very fast and very effectively. Let me give one example. In one of my several failed careers, I was an architect—to be strictly accurate, I worked in an architect's office and never achieved qualifications. Therefore, I yield to no one in admiration for this amazing building, which works extraordinarily well 150 years after it was designed. But of far more relevance and value than the conventional "Line of Route" tour of the building must be to demonstrate that it is a working democracy. I believe that all British citizens, not just students, will be far more interested in what happens here rather than simply seeing what it looks like.
	Therefore, as a small initiative in that direction, I have set up on my own website a simple virtual tour to demonstrate how a Bill—naturally, called "Billy"— makes its way through the legislative process in this building. I have already been told by students that that is of far greater value than being shown the way in which Pugin and Barry designed for our predecessors. A useful by-product is that it demonstrates to the electorate how and where there is a point of entry into the legislative process—where the interactive communication referred to may be of value.
	Fourthly, I emphasise what has been said in the commission report and by Members today, that we must make a special effort to communicate with younger age groups. My noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter referred to the depressing drop in turnout of the 18 to 24 age group—from 39 per cent to 37 per cent—in the recent general election. The chairman of the Electoral Commission, who drew this to our attention, warned that some people are now out of the habit of voting, with a generation apparently carrying forward their non-voting as they get older. That is doubly depressing.
	Finally, I have a specific suggestion which I touched on in the commission but which did not appear in the report. The fifth of November marks one day in the year when, at least in theory, the nation celebrates the survival of parliamentary democracy. Why not make that a focal point of a Parliament Week? Scandinavian parliaments which I have visited take their message to the electorate. They involve local parliamentarians in events. Schools and community groups are invited to put forward projects of all kinds to indicate the extent to which parliament is, or should be, acting on an issue of concern and interest to them. Surely, that would be a typically British way—and perhaps delightful in its own way—to demonstrate that Parliament is a critical part of national life and by building on the tradition of Guy Fawkes night we could perhaps enjoy ourselves at the same time.

Baroness Shephard of Northwold: My Lords, it is, as ever, a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who has brought a brisk and invigorating suggestion to this extremely important debate. It will be interesting to hear the response of the Leader of the House to that and other matters raised today.
	I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, on the enthusiasm and skill that he has brought to the production of the report. I also congratulate the Hansard Society on its continued and impartial attention to the cause of parliamentary democracy in our country. The report has as its remit to examine public perceptions of Parliament and to recommend ways in which Parliament should counter what is described in the report, rather menacingly, as,
	"widespread cynicism and voter alienation, which is in danger of lapping at the skirts of the Mother of Parliaments itself".
	There are clearly issues alienating voters other than public perceptions of Parliament, one of which I intend to address later. Others have been addressed by earlier Hansard Society reports as the noble Lord, Lord Holme, pointed out.
	The recommendations range from the fairly easily accomplished, such as an updating of the parliamentary website, to rather more controversial ideas, which I think no one has raised so far, such as the appointment of a chief executive for Parliament and the involvement of a Speaker—any Speaker—in a more high-profile and explanatory role. Examples drawn from other parliaments suggest that we should introduce public presentations of the work of Parliament by impartial parliamentary officials themselves, using all the means of communication described during the debate. Those officials would be impartial in the same way that Clerks to Select Committees or the House Education Officers are impartial. Over time, intriguingly, it would be possible to test the optimistic proposition reported in chapter 5 that if that were done, journalists would resist the Westminster village approach that has during recent years so trivialised political reporting in the UK. It would be good to put it to the test.
	In France, for example, we do not see the same obsession with personalities in political reporting that, sadly, we find here. Nevertheless, research in which I am engaged with colleagues in Queen Mary College, University of London, and the Sorbonne reveals some of the same cynicism in the electorate described in the report. The research is based on a questionnaire completed by matched groups in France and England, designed to probe attitudes to the democratic process and accountability—in short, whether voters actually think that it is worth voting or whether they believe that other means, such as direct action, are more effective. We are seeing an illustration of that in France at the moment.
	The research is in its early stages, but there are already interesting points of convergence, where respondents in both countries tend to claim that all politicians are the same—where have we heard that before?—and of difference, where there are clear indications that the French respondents, unlike their English counterparts, believe that their vote counts locally. Intriguingly, the translation of a questionnaire into French by colleagues at the Sorbonne has revealed the fact that there is no precise French equivalent of the word accountability.
	It is regrettably the case that there is, as the report states, great confusion in the public mind about Parliament. My elected experience—the noble Lord, Lord Holme, also said this—was that people do not distinguish between Parliament and government. They use the words interchangeably. However, I take gentle issue with the comment in the report in chapter 1, paragraph 1.5, which states:
	"Without Parliament, both the legitimacy of Government and the freedoms of the press are unlikely to stand".
	As my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth reminded us, actually, without a parliamentary majority there can be no Government. As an earlier Hansard Society report on the scrutiny role of Parliament stated:
	"Crucially it creates and sustains the government".
	The power to govern is bestowed on a political party by the people via the ballot box and legitimised by Parliament. There is no other way under our constitution. That is how important Parliament is. Obviously it is vital that Parliament itself takes charge of how it is perceived and, by using the means of communication, sets about putting the story straight. That is the message from the report; clearly there is support for it from all sides of the House.
	However, it is not only the responsibility of Parliament to explain and publicise the importance of its role. It is also the proper role of governments, which depend on Parliament for their existence. That has already been mentioned by other noble Lords, but everyone who has ever been in government will agree that close parliamentary scrutiny of the kind exercised most notably by Members of this House is deeply uncomfortable. Indeed, about the worst experience that I can recall as a Minister was having to appear before Select Committees of this House, where were assembled not only all one's ministerial predecessors but every known world expert on the subject.
	All governments, whatever their politics, seek to avoid parliamentary scrutiny if they can. That is part of the game, part of the territory. But it is also the duty of governments—whatever government—to protect the sovereignty of Parliament and to defend its importance. In the rather dire circumstances so eloquently described in the report of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, it is imperative that the Government should give a lead. It is good to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, that he has already had an encouraging response to the report from the Leader of the other place.
	It is the case, and it is well documented, that constitutional change such as devolution—introduced for the best reasons, of course—has obscured the clear line of accountability of our Parliament. It is also the case that the plethora of plebiscites, focus groups, lobbies, citizens' movements, the Internet and citizens' juries obscures the important role of Parliament. Of course Parliament is not the sole repository of political wisdom, and I do not suppose that it has ever been, but it alone is elected and accountable to the electorate. It is not acceptable that any government should seek to bypass Parliament. There have been sins on the part of the present Government, very fiercely pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, and there will undoubtedly have been sins on the part of previous governments. But if a government seek to bypass Parliament, that does not increase respect for Parliament among the electorate. It is apposite that all governments should take note of that; after last night, maybe they will.
	I welcome the report. We are all parliamentarians and should support its main message: that Parliament, which is at the heart of our democratic process, should be explained, presented and made accessible and important to the electorate by Parliament itself. That must be right. But in that task, which falls to us as the current incumbents, Parliament in turn must be supported by government to achieve what the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, has described as a step change.

Lord Greaves: My Lords, this has been a fascinating debate so far, from the originator of the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, right down the speakers' list. I would like to continue to discuss much of what has been said, but I hope that noble Lords will forgive me if instead I get on with my remarks.
	The report's subheading is Report of the Hansard Society Commission on the Communication of Parliamentary Democracy, and that is what most of the debate has been about. It has also been suggested that we consider making it easier to communicate what we do. The Motion refers to participation in the political process. To a degree, those are two different things. Participation in the political process clearly includes communication of parliamentary democracy and involvement of people with what we do in each House; but participation, which I want to discuss in more detail, goes further than that. In doing so, I wish to make clear that I do not disagree fundamentally with the comments on political leadership made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, who said that it was time that politicians engaged in persuasion not spin, and that people deserved to be led not fed; nor do I disagree with most of what the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, said on the role of this House and its communication.
	Page 14 of the report touches on other activities and suggests that direct political activities, including signing a petition, taking part in a demonstration, responding to a consultation or presenting views to an MP, have increased in recent years. It reports that the most recent audit of engagement by the Electoral Commission and the Hansard Society found that one adult in six is a political activist, and lists those activities as including signing a petition and writing to your MP. In my view, that does not constitute being much of an activist, if that is all you do.
	I am aware that tradition always weighs heavily in this House—never more so than when my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter can quote her great-grandfather in such a debate. I am reminded that the Earl of Oxford and Asquith, as he was then, compared trying to make a speech in your Lordships' House to trying to speak in a poorly illuminated charnel house—I am not sure whether those were his exact words. We have advanced with the times a little: we now have electric lighting, electric clocks, microphones and even an annunciator for those sitting in the Gallery, so perhaps we can make some advances with such things as the electric Internet and electric television.
	Democracy depends not just on the institutions of liberal democratic politics and representative democracy but also on people getting off their backsides and taking part actively in the political process. That might entail becoming involved in the formal institutions or in more direct action.
	Recently, we have talked about the ancient rights of personal belief. In your Lordships' House, we have discussed the right of free speech in relation to the Bill on racial and religious hatred. We talk a bit less nowadays about rights of association, which I believe are just as important and fundamental. Mr Brian Haw has a tatty display in Parliament Square that upsets a lot of people in this building. I believe the fact that he has been able to do that, and continues to do it, despite so much of authority wanting him not to, is an outstanding statement of democracy in this country. But, in most cases, being effective is not something that people can do as individual acts; they have to associate with other people to organise it.
	Democratic politics is an untidy, messy and difficult matter. If it is working properly, it should be awkward for authority. Nowadays, we tend to think far too much in terms of people taking part in carefully structured surveys, focus groups, citizens' panels and so forth. We talk about partnerships and organisations, which are ridiculously called stakeholders—a word that I believe should be banned in your Lordships' House, as well as everywhere else. We have the new burgeoning quangocracy of people who are appointed by authority to take part in the democratic system through those organisations. That is not real democracy. Real democracy is when people disagree and have big rows and conflicts which have to be resolved. In many ways, democracy is about having structures and institutions which allow conflicts to be resolved, even though people are angry and committed. Ultimately, a process has taken place in which they have been involved. It is not the structures or structural participation that matters, but whether people are able to get organised, associate themselves and put forward their views.
	As a parliament, what should we do? We cannot force people to take part; to vote, to go on demonstrations, to write to the local newspaper or whatever else it is that they want to do. We can make sure that the institution of Parliament provides clear and full information for people who want it. There is a lot of very useful information in the report. I agree entirely with what people have said about the website, which I cannot find my way round.
	We must be open in our proceedings rather than secretive, and less sensitive to outside criticism and people mobilising for their beliefs. We must be more receptive to listening and to engaging with people who want to engage with us. I have to say, in parenthesis, that if we are talking about the means of making Parliament more understandable to people outside, or even to those of us who are here, we need to concentrate in your Lordships' House on this House. If there is a lack of understanding of how Parliament as a whole works among the public and the journalists who are supposed to be in here, the lack of understanding of how this House works is almost complete. Time and again we have to explain to well known, competent journalists, in words of one syllable, how this House works, the procedures and how it relates to the House of Commons. We should be worried about that.
	In my final few moments, I want to make a few comments about the Parliament Channel, which is brilliant as far as it goes. Far more people have watched it than have ever read Hansard. There are technical problems in many parts of the country. The picture is postcard size on about a quarter of the screen. I have no idea why that is. When you complain, you are just told that there is not enough power to do it properly. That needs sorting out.
	The fact that the Parliament Channel provides continuous coverage is very good, but the annotation and explanation of what is going on is absolutely abysmal. For anyone who does not understand the procedures of this House it is almost impossible to follow them sensibly. There is no reason why that should be the case. Although some annotation is provided, nowadays we are used to 24-hour news services with strap lines running across the bottom of the screen and panels popping up to tell the viewer what is going on. That kind of information ought to be incorporated into the Parliament Channel. Perhaps it is only a silly point, but we ought to think about the words that are used to describe things. What does "Starred Questions" mean? It appears on the Parliament Channel. Simply renaming that business "Daily Question Time" would make it far more understandable.
	I turn to some other aspects. For good reasons this Chamber moves seamlessly from one item of business to the next. That is fine within the House, but those watching from the outside find it meaningless. At one moment we are discussing one thing, and the next we have moved on to another. For example, this debate was announced with the words "The Lord Puttnam". Admirable though the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, is and admirable though this debate may be, apart from the fact that the noble Lord has sponsored it, those words do not describe what the debate is all about. Those responsible for broadcasting the Parliament Channel ought to look hard at ways of making it more comprehensible to the people who tune in. Again, we are perhaps all astonished to find out that people do actually watch it from time to time.

Lord Gould of Brookwood: My Lords, first, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley, who made a terrific speech. It was a good speech because it reeked of integrity, of decency and of realism. If we want an example of the sort of politician whom the public respect, my noble friend is exactly that. She has always been popular and well respected. She is the kind of person who puts politics in a good light.
	I congratulate my noble friend Lord Puttnam on producing an exemplary report. What is so impressive is that it is both honest about the seriousness of the problem and uncompromising in the radicalism of its solutions. I only wish that I could make films as well as my noble friend can write reports.
	We do face a crisis of political engagement. If a visitor came from Mars and observed the polling in the last general election, their impression would not be that this party or that policy is preferred, but that the whole political process is viewed with something that approaches bemused contempt. In the Hansard Society report, Enhancing Engagement, the word "politics" is associated with sentiments like, "hypocrite", "dishonest", "liar", "self promotion", "greed", "selfish" and "disdainful", to name only some of the best of them. They are entirely typical. Let us have no illusions here; this is what the public are saying.
	Politics are, in the first years of the 21st century, becoming a minority sport. The institutions of politics as we know them and often love them—we love them here—their procedures, culture, language and rules, are turning away the public they seek to serve. The game of politics is, by and large, played in the same way by the same old rules, but the stadium is increasingly empty and the crowd is melting away.
	The crisis of political engagement has no single cause, a point which has been made clear in our debate. It flows from the whirlwind of change that has transformed so much in recent years. Globalisation has sucked power upwards, sweeping away the traditional geography of politics. Citizens feel increasingly insecure and disempowered. Consumer expectations have been transformed so that we accept as normal qualities such as choice, quality, responsiveness, consistency, personalisation, and even a measure of control. Traditional institutions have lost their right to unchallenged respect. Trust has to be earned and depends on authenticity, transparency, a moral cause and, increasingly, responsiveness.
	The politics of Westminster have become divorced from the politics of the people. Mums in the focus groups that have become so popular in this House today recoil at the notion of politics, but are intensely political in their interests and their lives. Young people regard rejection of politics as normal but are involved in more political activity than ever before. Politics are like a river that has burst its bank and is flowing in one direction while the riverbed continues in another. Westminster politics goes one way, the people's politics another.
	Finally, the supply of information has exploded; it is continuous, intensive, personal and interactive.
	These factors alone would challenge politics, but compounding them is the breakdown in trust between politicians and the media which now contaminates so much of our political discourse. Steven Barnett, Professor of Media Studies at Westminster University, believes we have entered a "new age of media contempt", in which politicians are treated routinely as a lower form of life. On the other side, many in the media believe that it is the default mode of politicians to dissemble and it is the media's duty to expose this.
	We have all become trapped in a circle of disengagement. Consumers with raised expectations, citizens with insecurities, a media edging towards the destructive, politicians who feel defensive in the face of unrelenting scrutiny—all these factors reinforce each other. The process does not start in one place alone and the solutions do not lie in one place alone. If we want to change politics, everyone—the media, political parties, citizens—will have to play their part. We are all responsible; we all have to make a difference.
	But the challenge is vast. We have to move from the politics of disengagement to the politics of participation in which involvement is continuous, the political process accessible and political institutions responsive. This is a very long journey, but the first steps are clear.
	We need a new settlement between media and politicians. The age of contempt has to end. Politicians need to be more open and more transparent; the media need to be less hostile and destructive. The London School of Economics and the University of the Arts in London are creating a joint initiative, in which I am involved, in an attempt to strengthen confidence in the media and to help restore trust between media and politics. The poison has to leave the system. Journalists have their job to do but politicians are, for the most part, decent people, serving the public interest as best they can, and both sides need to recognise this.
	We need to modernise radically the institutions of politics. This is where the Hansard Society report is so useful and so right. Our political institutions must be shaped around politics as they are, not politics as we would like them to be. The key here is accessibility and responsiveness. This is an old building, but it is a fascinating one. We need everyone, not only the lucky few who visit or report on it, to see it as it is. Television coverage of Parliament should be as unconstrained as possible. We need to uproot Parliament and take it to the public. Parliamentary committees—even, possibly, the whole House on occasion—should move to regional centres. We need interactive communication between Parliament and the people. At first, this can be just communication, but then possibly petitions and citizen's initiatives with real political content.
	We need to rethink what democracy means in the early 21st century. Democracy in this modern era cannot mean only elections every four years or so; we have to move to continual involvement and dialogue. As involvement increases, so does trust. Citizens' juries work. They are not a complete democratic model but they are a hothouse of democratic possibility. People need real mechanisms that involve them in decisions that affect them. Politics and political campaigning must become more local, more interactive, more of a partnership.
	Finally, we need a new culture of politics. I have lost count of the number of times I have shown a television bulletin to a group of the electorate and they have looked on bemused and uncomprehending. They see politicians fighting and commentators interpreting arcane events in a way that simply leaves them cold. That is, incidentally, why the consensual character of this House, if only anyone knew about it, is so close to what the public now prefer.
	The solution is not sensationalism or entertainment, but relevance. Everyone—politicians, reporters, commentators, the public—wants the same thing: they want the hard truth without embellishment, explained in language that people can understand.
	People are wise. They know that the problems are complex, cannot be solved overnight, and may not even be solvable at all. They want to be treated as adults; they should be—they can take it. There is a very long way to go to fix all this. It will not be solved by one silver bullet but a complex myriad of solutions, but solved it will be, and this report is an outstanding place to start. I congratulate the authors of the report, and I congratulate my noble friend the Leader of the House on facilitating this debate.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I, too, commend the Hansard Society for taking this initiative. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, for his chairmanship of the commission. Its 39 recommendations are, by and large, unarguable; they seem self-authenticating, and I shall refer to two of them. I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, for a quite outstanding maiden speech, which others have properly praised. I also commend the information and education departments of this House which, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton, and others have said, do amazing work with tiny resources. We have fewer informational resources in this House than the average company has in its PR department. That is bizarre.
	I spent between 1970 and 1983 trying to get elected to the other place and once to the European Parliament. Five times I was roundly rejected by the electorate, and I took the hint in 1983. However, I learnt vividly that the British electorate are, as others have said, not uninterested in politics. Rather, they are potentially passionately interested but, for reasons others have touched on and I do not intend to repeat, they feel apart from the processes here. It was evident even then. In trying to do something at grass-roots level, I set up a charity called the Citizenship Foundation. When I came here in 1998 I, like the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, made my maiden speech on citizenship and connectedness. That was the occasion on which we first discussed reform of this place. My point then was that unless we drew the public into deliberations on reform of this House, we would fail democracy and ourselves extremely badly, and I think that we did. We set up a committee but it had only eight public meetings; roughly 100 people came to each. The effort to draw in public engagement with reform here was, in my view, tragically inadequate.
	Unless we can do this along the lines set out in the report and along the lines mentioned by noble Lords today, we will continue down this dismal path of citizen disengagement and sourness, leading to what I call a culture of disparagement of politics, which is deeply unhelpful to the process, unfair to the politicians and unsatisfactory to our citizenry.
	To recover the political will and the interest of the electorate, we must do a number of things. First, we must show genuine interest in them. We simply cannot expect the public to be interested in us if, in truth, we are not interested in them. I am afraid that we demonstrate an extremely limited interest in them in all sorts of ways. Why, for example, as we take part in an accessible debate, which has been well trailed and has involved hundreds if not thousands of people, do we have—I added this up before I rose to speak—one person in the Press Gallery, two under the Bar, two in the Circular Gallery and 12 in the Public Gallery—there are a few more now—and 27 in the Chamber, with 21 speakers? That says a lot about the failings of this place and the failings of the process, and we need to go on asking why. I believe that we must reach out in every way possible. The principal mechanism suggested by the report—the new communications council or department—is central to what we do.
	One of the things that we could very easily do tomorrow is for all of us to offer to speak outside this place to organisations who want speakers. It would be very simple to organise. I have no doubt that 600 out of the 690 of us would say yes and probably be willing to go and speak half a dozen times a year. If such a list were publicly available for organisations such as women's institutes, schools, parties and universities, that would be a good thing. We could have 5,000 speaking visits a year out of this place going to where people are rather than expecting them to come to us. That would be a very strong symbol, and we are short of outgoing symbols.
	We must also take over-legislation seriously. It baffles us: it totally baffles the punter. It is not just the volume of legislation—13,408 pages in 2003—but its complexity. I do not know how many noble Lords have looked at the Identity Cards Bill, but it needs a lawyer to find his or her way round it. We have reached a pitch in our principal function of lawmaking that is utterly self-defeating. It is self-defeating in terms of the impact on the country and in terms of citizen adhesion and ownership of our processes. We are too top-down and we must take seriously localism and devolution in all sorts of ways. I am convinced of that, and it seems to me now to be virtually agreed between the main parties that we have to reach out by reaching down and letting people do for themselves what currently we are doing very badly for them.
	Conduct has been referred to. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, was a little gentle on the other place. I do not think that people understand the ways of the other place as they see it on television. I think that I understand it myself, but yesterday's proceedings—as heard on the wireless and seen on television—were deeply inimical to a sense of public engagement with and understanding of what we are about and what we do.
	Nobody has mentioned electoral reform. It is a highly partisan subject, I appreciate, but I put it to the House that there are far too few voters in this country who are represented in Parliament. I have never in my political life cast a vote for a successful candidate.

Noble Lords: Oh!

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I can hear the titters, but it is not good enough. We need a system where people feel that they have someone representing them in Parliament.
	I want to commend Recommendation 18, which refers to citizenship education and the role that we can play in that. Citizenship came on to the curriculum in 2002. I would hate today to pass without saying how sad I am—and I think others may be—that David Blunkett was forced to resign yesterday. He was a fine Minister and is a fine man and the person who more than any other brought citizenship on to the curriculum against great opposition. Everyone now accepts it, but not enough is being done. David Bell, the OFT top man, was lecturing at John Moores University yesterday. He said that in one in five schools, citizenship education is still marginalised. He emphasised how citizenship education can reinvigorate education as a whole, making it exciting and relevant.
	The noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, asked me to say how sad he was not to be here. He had an unbreakable engagement and wanted me to say:
	"Good citizenship needs to be taught and it should not be left to chance. It is difficult to measure success, but with so many now in the field I hope that all of us together can make an impact".
	What an impact he made as Speaker and later in this field.
	I have two suggestions. First, we should abandon titles in this House. I am not suggesting that anyone who has one should lose it, but it is distancing and vaguely ludicrous to call life Peers Lord this and Baroness that. I genuinely think that it is a distancing, unnecessary encumbrance to the very thing that we are trying to do—present ourselves in a modern, democratic, ordinary light.
	Secondly, I believe that people who do not attend this place with some degree of regularity should lose their place. That could be done quite simply by saying that if you do not attend six times a year, or something like that, you are out. People do not understand how this place can be a serious legislative House if a third or a quarter of Members are very rarely here. We must also make changes in silly things—such as the fact that the people sitting in the Public Gallery are not allowed to make notes of what we are saying, because it is against the rules of the House. That is stupid. It has nothing to do with the modern world. We should treat our visitors with respect. I had 40 of them in on Monday and it took them 20 minutes each to get through the security check. That is not respecting the public—this is their House, not ours.
	Finally—and perhaps most cheekily, but still seriously—why on earth do we not have an illuminated sign outside St Stephen's Entrance saying "Vacancies in the House of Lords", "Vacancies in the House of Commons"? Have you ever seen the galleries full in this place? No—and when you ask why, you get a very unsatisfactory answer. There are a lot of things we could do, big and small. Thanks, once more, to the Hansard Society commission.

Lord Sawyer: My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, on this issue, and I believe that what I have to say fits nicely with his contribution. He is a bit of a mentor of mine in these matters, and I want him to know that if I had had the opportunity to vote for him in those elections, I would have done so—provided that they were elections in which he was the Labour candidate.
	I congratulate my noble friend Lady Morris on her maiden speech. As we would expect, it was thoughtful, reflective and wise, and those are the qualities among many others that my noble friend will bring to these Benches—which are the ones that I care most about, of course—and to the wider House. I am sorry that I was late for this debate, because I wanted to come to listen, although that may be a new concept, and I particularly wanted to hear the contribution of my noble friend Lord Puttnam. I am pleased that he has been able to pass me a copy of his speech to read before I make my contribution. The work of the noble Lord's commission is excellent and outstanding; it follows on the work of the Newton commission, of which I had the privilege and opportunity to be a member, and goes with the grain of trying to bring Parliament closer to the people, as all noble Lords have said. That is a very important and necessary task for the health of our democracy.
	At some point in our history we shall need a Prime Minister who gets really passionate about these matters. In the copy of the speech that the noble Lord gave me, I was able to read that he was receiving good soundings and a good response from Ministers. But I hope that in future we shall have a Prime Minister who is really passionate about modernising Parliament. Those of us who have worked with Tony Blair know how passionate he was about modernising his own party. It was very important to him; he used to say to the electorate, before he had the chance to show his credentials as Prime Minister, "I have modernised my party, can I modernise the country?" He has attempted to do so, and the success of that or otherwise will be the subject of another debate; but clearly he did not have the same passion for modernising Parliament. I hope in future that one of the parties represented here will produce a leader and a Prime Minister who does, because it will take a big change in culture to make the steps forward that noble Lords have talked about this afternoon.
	My take on this subject is probably quite different from that of other people, because I think of Parliament as a place of work, and as a place where people come to make legislation, make speeches, ask questions, or support or challenge governments. People come for all kinds of different reasons, but this is actually a place of work—and I have been thinking about how that relates to the places of work where I spend most of time. As many noble Lords do, I spend a lot of time in places of work outside Parliament and I spend a lot of time with people who earn less than the national average wage, so perhaps I have some understanding of how it is for people like that.
	I looked for three key words that people in the world of work outside Parliament would expect to see, and I came up with the words "fairness", "equality" and "merit". That is what modern workplaces are like today, both in the public and private sectors, and when people go to work that is what they expect to see. They expect to experience fair employment policies, equality of opportunity and promotions based on merit. I asked myself, what would be the key words I would use to describe this place of work? In order to make the point, perhaps my choice has been a bit extreme, but I hope your Lordships will go with it so I can make us all think, which is the intention of my contribution. The three words I chose for Parliament were élitism, patronage and privilege.
	We all recognise that we are by definition something of an élite. We cannot avoid that. In the other place, the disconnection from any constituency, the long hours, the criticism by the media and the close attention paid to the words of parliamentarians makes us an élite, but we have to guard against élitism. We must look at ways in which we can practise humility. We have to develop our listening skills as much as we develop our speaking skills, and we have a long way to travel in that respect. Most of all, we must learn from people who are not parliamentarians about how it is for them and how they perceive us. Many of the speeches made by noble Lords this afternoon have reflected the importance of that learning process and the fact that many noble Lords are involved in it.
	I tried to think of a good example of a non-élite politician, and I came across the example of Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, getting on the Tube and going to work with Londoners straight after the bombing. This was not a photo-opportunity, which we see so often in politics when politicians go to places and look normal for five minutes before coming back and being an élite. It was a man practising something that was not élitist; he travels to work every day in the same way as the people he represents. It was so important that he could continue his practice and show solidarity with the people of London. It is not easy to find other examples, but the principle is that those of us involved in politics should explore more ways of showing that we are not élites, and that we can express solidarity and connectedness with the people we claim to speak for.
	There is also the word "patronage". When I was the general secretary of the Labour Party, new MPs—or candidates about to become MPs—would come to me and ask what they should do to get on in Parliament, and I would often say: "Find a patron. Find a senior politician with whom you have an affinity, work with them, look to help and support them, and by that means you will probably find that if you work hard and make sensible speeches supporting the Government, you will probably have advancement". I did not say: "Have a good look at the job description". I did not say: "Reflect on the person specifications", "Take your appraisal very seriously" or: "Have a good discussion with the chief executive about your personal development programme". I said none of those things, because, although they apply in a huge way outside Parliament, they do not apply here.
	I am not saying we can eliminate patronage; it is probably important to how the place works. However, we could at least try, particularly through the noble Lord's suggestion of a chief executive and some kind of council, to consider how some of the practices that work in normal workplaces—and that encourage people to grow, develop, change and train—can be linked to the well tried systems we have here. That might change the opinion, often held outside this place, that Parliament depends on patronage rather than the criteria that work in other people's lives.
	Finally, there is privilege. How do you define privilege? Often, the standing of politics is not enhanced by politicians in the other place—who, in the eyes of the voters, earn reasonably good salaries—taking jobs outside Parliament that also pay good salaries. When I was a young man, people expected MPs to do their work for a salary and not take on other work. I do not want to be "hairshirt" about this. Certainly it is important that noble Lords work outside Parliament, and it is probably important that MPs do so. However, one needs to be sensitive to the effect that has on people, as one needs to be sensitive to feelings of unfairness and resentment that can arise among people outside Parliament regarding the provision of grace and favour homes. A good reforming government that wanted to do something about the way in which Parliament was perceived could consider that matter. Obviously, no one would deny the importance of a Prime Minister having a place to which he could take visitors and guests and where he can spend his leisure time. But in the modern world is it possible to have a parliamentary conference centre where Ministers could book suites to spend a weekend with colleagues from abroad? The same building could be used by non-parliamentarians. Is there a different way of creating a space that it is perceived senior politicians need, but not providing what seem to be grace and favour homes?
	Those are just a few reflections that I wanted to make on the subject. The debate has concentrated very much on communication. The fundamental question concerns what we communicate. These are challenging words. They may not be the best words or widely accepted, but if we communicate patronage, élitism and privilege, we are wasting our time because we are communicating the wrong things. As time moves on, if we can make the changes that have been outlined in the report and try sincerely to get closer to the people and start to communicate fairness, equality and merit, we will have a chance of changing Parliament for the better.

Lord McNally: My Lords, that was a typically thought provoking contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Sawyer. Without destroying the non-partisan nature of the debate, I leave a further thought to provoke him—that in the ninth year of a majority Labour Government he still finds problems with élitism, patronage and privilege. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Gould, could send a copy of his speech to the Prime Minister—we know that he reads his memos very closely—because if we are to get any of the changes that have been debated today, we shall need real enthusiasm and commitment from the very top.
	The noble Lord, Lord Holme, pointed out that the report is a Hansard Society production. However, in the way that it has developed it bears all the hallmarks of a Puttnam production. There have been some outstanding performers, a little glamour, some cameo roles for distinguished old thespians and "A Star is Born" with the outstanding speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley. However, she cannot imagine how old it makes me feel when I say that I remember serving in the other place with the noble Baroness's father and uncle. It was an outstanding speech.
	This is an important debate about the importance of Parliament. I thought that the analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Gould, was a little doom laden but he was right to tell us that there was no single silver bullet regarding the issues that we are discussing. When she replies to the debate the noble Baroness the Leader of the House will not be able to say that we have not suggested initiatives. My noble friend Lord Phillips suggested signs being put outside the House saying that seats were available. A number of noble Lords rightly pointed out the revolutionary impact that a proper use of website, and interactivity on that website, could achieve. My noble friend Lord Tyler suggested holding a parliament week. The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, suggested having a new visitor centre. Central to the whole report is the concept of a communications department under an all-party administration.
	Certainly, I consider the website an attractive concept. Having slightly lived my life backwards, I now find myself in early old age with teenage children. Watching how they use their website is, for me, revolutionary. They do not lack any interest in politics. My 15 year-old son goes on to chat rooms where they debate all kinds of things, and people from all parts of the world join in.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I just wondered whether he ever listened to his dad?

Lord McNally: My Lords, it is interesting that the noble Lord should ask that. I do not usually follow the chat rooms in detail, but the other night he got a message on a chat room where the intervener said that the reason why my son took a particular point of view was that his father was a well-known left-wing radical. I instantly made him download it, and I can distribute it to any doubting colleagues—it did not say which secure unit the contributor was being held in. The point is that the Internet is a way of getting young people involved.
	We can use this building far better. There are too many restrictions and too many excuses. I agree with my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter; I am worried that security will now take the place of cost as a reason for doing nothing. I would use this Chamber for youth parliaments when we are not using it. I would let people much more into the building; there is a great deal more scope. I like the idea of Parliament going on the road in some aspects and signing up for the ideas suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, of speaking tours and the creation of more information for visitors when they come here. They all have their attractions, and the unit proposed by the report, with such a mandate and with a proper budget, could start making this place work more effectively.
	A few months ago, I suggested during Question Time that we turn this place into a museum of democracy and we move into a whole new Parliament building. There was the usual lifting of skirts at that, but the problem is that the building imposes its own conservatism. However, I also have some sympathy with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, because I do not want to see us dumbing down in a desire to communicate. The point made by my noble friend Lord Greaves about making things more simple and understandable is valid, but some of the courtesies and rituals are important. In giving evidence to a committee the other day, I said that if you start looking like Croydon Council, you start getting treated like Croydon Council. I say that with no disrespect to that fine local authority—I know how to secure a postbag.
	One point I want to raise is media coverage. I noted that the noble Lord, Lord Currie, resisted the suggestion that Ofcom should take over our regulation. It is one of the few times that I have seen Ofcom not wanting to empire-build, so I congratulate him on that. He also resisted Ofcom having oversight of the print media, so we shall have to leave it to think about its role in a democracy. The broadcast media are accountable, which is why I have been so enthusiastic in my support for a strong charter for the BBC. It is no accident that all studies show that broadcast news, with its responsibility for balance, is much more trusted by the people. Print journalists should ponder that and worry about it. A study by Cardiff University showed that over 70 per cent of people said that basically they trusted the news they heard on radio or television. About 10 per cent trusted what they read in a red-top newspaper. If I were a journalist, I would worry about my own profession rather than about the body politic.
	The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, paid compliment to the Parliament channel. However, it has always mystified me that we are told that we will all watch 400 channels very soon, yet we get one channel—as he pointed out, in certain parts of the country it gives you only a postage-stamp picture—and if the Commons is going through the most dull and mundane business but there is a debate of real public interest in this Chamber, the Commons is still automatically given the live coverage. It happened the other week when there was the debate on the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Joffe. In the morning, all the papers were saying that there would be a debate in the Lords that afternoon about assisted suicide but, if you switched on the Parliament channel, you would have seen three MPs discussing some routine business.
	There is much more opportunity for promotion. I think that it is mentioned in the paper. We see BBC Four programmes promoted on BBC1, so why not say on the main channels, "Tomorrow on the Parliament channel the Lords or the Commons will be debating X, Y or Z"? That would get people involved. I am told that you can arrange on your Internet for a message to pop up about various things. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, mentioned how Amazon uses that effectively. That kind of idea about pushing out information is important.
	Reference was made to Robin Cook. What do Dick Crossman, Norman St John-Stevas—the noble Lord, Lord St John of Fawsley—and Robin Cook all have in common? They have in common that, when in the hot seat, they took the opportunity to press through real reform. I hope that Mr Hoon and the noble Baroness the Leader of the House will go and tell the Prime Minister that, if he is looking for a legacy, this is the moment to get a real communications strategy for Parliament that would greatly strengthen our democracy.

Baroness Wilcox: My Lords, it has been an excellent and valuable debate, and I take the opportunity to thank the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, for introducing it today. It is also a great pleasure to welcome to this House the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, who made her maiden speech today. As we have heard from other noble Lords, her reputation goes before her from the other place. Her integrity and personal honesty will be very welcome in this House, and I look forward to hearing her speak here in the years ahead. I will say, naughtily, that I rather recoiled at the idea of Offgov, yet another regulatory body. This Government is rather keen on them; I was hoping that she meant it as a joke.
	The 120 pages of the report, which is indelibly associated with the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, reflect the scale and intensity of the work done by him and his colleagues on improving public engagement with Parliament. I congratulate him and his team on their commitment to that. A great deal in the report is good, but I fear that a good deal also somewhat misses the point. The point is that a major part of the business that we are in is line-by-line scrutiny of complex draft legislation. That will never be exhilarating television, however skilful are the panning shots or enthusiastic the reaction shots that we could imagine during a speech by, say, the noble Lord, Lord Gould, who spoke so eloquently today, or my noble friend Lady Shephard, who brought us news of her work with London University and the Sorbonne.
	There is no one for whom I have a greater admiration in this area than the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam. But even he would be hard-pressed to take the second sitting of the Grand Committee on the Commissioner for Older People (Wales) Bill to the top of the ratings. The reality—and I follow and extend the reference by the noble Lord, Lord Currie of Marylebone, to a football match—is that if we were to view each group of amendments as a football match, we would play out three or four goalless draws for every game with a goal. Cup shocks—government defeats—come pretty rarely. In 2004–05, 3,306 amendments were laid; 913 were made, but the Government lost only 36 times. That makes one cup shock every 90 games. That is a bit boring and is scarcely the stuff to get people rushing to their screens or to our Public Gallery.
	We know that in the midst of those obscure proceedings and the dialogue across the Chamber, valuable work is done. Avoidable injustices are avoided. Impending mistakes are corrected. Ministers are careful to consider points that are raised in debate and are ready to alter their view. It is useful work, but it is frequently dull, as the empty seats in the Moses Room or in the Chamber show all too often. If we do not watch every word ourselves, how can we expect the public to do so?
	We cannot alter the nature of our work, and I do not think that we should. Indeed, concern with procedure—where we have made many major changes in recent years as part of the Williams reforms—obscures the real issue, which is whether the two Houses of Parliament are doing their job to the full in sceptically reviewing the work of the Executive. I do not think that they are. Scrapping the fine old term "Strangers" or trying to abolish the office of the Lord Chancellor—part of processional ceremonies that every tourist who visits Parliament has read about in their books—does not bring us closer to the people. It merely drains colour from what we have, as my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon described much better than I could.
	All my life in business says to me that we should spend less time worrying about such trivia and more time worrying about whether our basic business of holding the Executive to account is performing. We should do all that we can, and the report has many valuable suggestions to communicate better and to secure more attention for the work of the Select Committees of this House. We should also try to reach out to young people, although I note that the Prime Minister has had the power of patronage for eight years and the average age of Labour Peers appointed by him in the past two years is 60.
	The report is full of ingenious ideas about how we could reach out. I most definitely agree that our parliamentary website should be made more accessible, easily navigable and comprehensible. We should not lose sight of the work that the Clerks of this House are already doing on that, but I have no doubt that the report will encourage them to go further.
	I also pay tribute, as has the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, and others, to the work of my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth and our party's Commission to Strengthen Parliament. Many recommendations, and indeed many recommendations in the Puttnam report, concerned another place. I am interested in the idea of a petitions committee, on the model of the Scottish Parliament, but would like to know more about how it might work in practice. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, that we must look at easing restrictions on media access to the Palace of Westminster. I am not averse to the idea of committees meeting outside London, but with daily attendances averaging only 388 in the previous Session, we need to be mindful of the pressure on both noble Lords and the staff of the House who would be involved in manning committees of the House, Grand Committees, Select Committees and committees outside London all at the same time. One of the great strengths of this House is the value for money that we represent. Every change we make needs to be measured against that—more politicians and more political staff are not high on the public's wish list.
	I commend, in particular, the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, for more post-legislative scrutiny. Let us just look at some recent legislation: the Licensing Act, the Gambling Act, the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and the European Parliamentary and Local Elections (Pilots) Act with its removal of the right to the secret ballot, to name but a few. In all those cases, would Ministers not have benefited from the opportunity to consider how their legislation was working out before it was finally visited on the public? Effective post-legislative scrutiny could help Ministers to pull back from, say, 24-hour drinking and might provide the basis for the swift, agreed amending or clarifying of legislation. Working with existing committees, it could also give Parliament a chance to look carefully at, and propose changes to, all those secondary powers spawned by giant Bills, such as the Communications Bill, which we are never able to look at properly during their passage through this House.
	Heaven knows, does not this House's experience with the Home Office's ill-thought-out Bill amended by ill-thought-out Bill Session after Session, make the case for Puttnam post-legislative scrutiny? Surely we should help the Home Office to get its ideas right before releasing another Rolf Harris pushmi-pullyu of a Bill on an unsuspecting world. I like that suggestion: I wonder what practical proposals the noble Baroness the Leader of the House has for bringing it into effect. I back, too, the idea of putting more effort into education and outreach work, although again resource and member issues are involved.
	In many ways, we are the junior partner to another place. We have different perspectives and different roles. It would be all too easy for Members of this House and the interests of this House to be put at the back of the queue in joint structures.
	I end where I began. We must improve communications where we can without losing the essence of what we are here to do. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, was a little disparaging about the authors of the Magna Carta in his foreword to the report. But from Magna Carta down we have built precious freedoms: trial by jury; habeas corpus; freedom of movement without a need to identify oneself; and freedom from detention without trial. Too many of those are being eroded, and time and again this House has stood up for them. I have not noticed any lack of interest on those occasions. People are interested in what we are doing when what we are doing is interesting. I doubt whether we need a large communications apparatus to get people to take an interest in our debates about detention without charge.
	Part of the confusion about what goes on in Parliament results from far too much complex and unnecessary legislation put forward by all governments, far too much otiose regulation that Parliament cannot halt or amend, and far too many priorities chosen by governments that are not the priorities of the public. It is as well to call Parliament to account and to ask us all to communicate better. But government, too, have a major responsibility to help Parliament do its job. Too often this House is treated as if it were the enemy of the Executive and not a partner in delivering better government. As many noble Lords have said today, convincing government to engage with Parliament is a communications challenge of a wholly different order. And it is, I submit, probably even more important and far more urgent than many of the themes set out in this worthy report.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Puttnam on chairing the Hansard Society Commission which produced this report and on giving us the opportunity to have what has been a very interesting and thought-provoking debate. I said to my noble friend at the beginning of the debate that I was faced with a real test of my commitment to Parliament today because I gave up attendance at a lunch with Tina Turner to be here. I also extend my thanks for the report to all the commissioners, including, in this House, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler.
	I also congratulate my noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley on her excellent maiden speech. I am sure that the House, together with me, looks forward to hearing her future contributions.
	The report raises issues of great importance to Parliament. Many of the report's recommendations are directed at another place and it is not for me or this House to comment on how another place conducts its affairs. However, the report and all speakers have shown that there are many ways in which this House can improve its relationship with the public, particularly on communication. At the outset, I pay tribute to the work of the Hansard Society and to the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham. The Hansard Society has set out a wide range of issues and recommendations on how Parliament can conduct itself, which have been of great value over years.
	The report offers this House an opportunity that I hope we shall grasp. My noble friend Lord Sawyer used three words to describe our house: elitism, patronage and privilege. The report shows how the public sum up their view of Parliament by saying that Parliament lacks a contemporary personality, and that it is seen as boring, old-fashioned and formal, dating from a different age when people would stop and listen to those better and wiser. If that is the reality of how we are seen, there is much that we can do to bring about a change.
	This afternoon many speakers have touched on our responsibilities as parliamentarians to the people we serve, not in this House as their elected representatives but as members of the second Chamber, with a responsibility to scrutinise legislation, to amend it and, ultimately, to pass it. In that role we serve the public and the failure to communicate effectively is a failure to serve effectively. I believe we are all chastened by the declining rate of voter participation and the apparent disengagement of young people from politics. There can be no greater reprimand in a parliamentary democracy than that its activities are seen as opaque and meaningless by our citizens.
	I am heartened by the tone of the debate this afternoon and by the ideas that noble Lords have put forward for making this House more accessible. This is a matter for the House; it is not a matter for government. It is in that spirit that I answer the debate. I say to the noble Lords, Lord Norton of Louth and Lord McNally, that this House can take the lead. To do that we need to be serious about what we want to achieve. Many suggestions have been made this afternoon and towards the end of my speech I shall make a suggestion about how we should take them forward.
	I have given a great deal of thought to ways in which we can encourage greater youth engagement with Parliament. I agree with my noble friend Lord Puttnam that it can be done. We shall need to be creative, innovative and ambitious. We should be serious about changing our relationship to the outside world. I say the "outside world" advisedly, because sometimes it seems like "us", the world of the Westminster village, and "them", the rest of the world.
	I strongly agree with my noble friend Lady Morris about the vibrancy of our democracy and the general interest that continues to exist in politics. I do not have a constituency—I would not be here if I did—but I talk to a lot of people and there is a lot of interest in both domestic and global issues. People have very strong views and they have no problem communicating those views when one talks to them. They have views which they want us to hear. On that, I agree with my noble friend Lord Gould. I also agree with my noble friend Lord Puttnam and others that while there is disengagement from party-political processes and from our institutions, including Parliament, there has been a rise and an interest in specific issues which require political leadership and a political response. So it is not a one-sided issue and it is important that we remember and recognise that. Indeed, the introduction of Chapter 2 of the report makes that point.
	That institutional disenchantment is not, overall, political disenchantment or disengagement. We should remember that people engage with the work of this House on an issue about which they feel strongly or which they feel affects their day-to-day lives. Some 15,000 members of the public wrote to the Select Committee on Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill. Fifteen thousand people connected what was happening here with an issue that mattered to them. And it also made the news in a way that gave authority and profile to the work of this House—something we are not always able to achieve.
	The comments I have heard today lead me to the conclusion that we in this House need a communications strategy, with the aim of promoting the work of the House, focusing on the valuable work that is done not only here in the Chamber but also in committees. The noble Lords, Lord Puttnam, Lord Currie and Lord Howarth, alluded to the importance of that.
	The great strength of this House lies in its ability to tackle big, complex issues and to do so thoroughly and impartially. But it also has a day-to-day task, described by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, in terms of the scrutiny of legislation. The fact that we have the opportunity to think about some of the big, complex moral issues which face our society, and that we can consider them before any government are able to take them forward legislatively, gives us a real opportunity. I am sure that the outside world would see that as an important and valuable part of our work.
	Perhaps I may add a personal view—a plug, if you like. If this House were to go down the route of having a presiding officer, that would be an appropriate figure to give authority to a communications strategy representing the work of the House. It would not be the work of government or of a party or any individual Peer; it would be the work of the totality of contributions made by this House as a legislating Chamber. That communications strategy could include a comprehensive approach to promoting the work of your Lordships' committees. And more committees might consider holding meetings outside Westminster and London, a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. Indeed, our committees might consider ways in which they can take greater steps to listen to the views of the public on the issues they are investigating; for example, through online communication.
	My noble friend Lord Gould and the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, stressed the importance of the coverage of activities in Parliament. There is no reason why we should not ask the Information Committee, for example, to look at the rules governing television coverage in this House. It was, after all, your Lordships' House which led the way to broadcasting proceedings from Parliament when it decided in 1983 to let the cameras in. The other place followed in 1989.
	The broadcasting contract is due for renewal next year. It is an opportunity to reconsider whether the rules are too narrowly drawn. In that respect, I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord McNally.
	I hesitate to say any more about the wider role of the media, which was a theme picked up by several noble Lords. The reason that I hesitate is that although there are some real issues about the role of our media that we need to consider as a Parliament, as a Minister and a member of Cabinet, anything that I say from this Dispatch Box about the role of the media will be misinterpreted. So I will say no more, but I think that the whole issue of our relationship with the media and the interpretation of the political events in our country is something that one of the committees of the House may consider in more depth.
	Many noble Lords know that I would like an expansion of the education programme that would make the House accessible to young people and students, especially when the House is not sitting. I have been told that the House could give permission for the Chamber to be used for the finals of the national debating competition, for example. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, raised that point. That would be an innovative way of engaging a new generation with the work of the House. It would be going beyond the heritage tour and giving our young people a better understanding of what this House does.
	The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, had another idea about a debating chamber close to Parliament. Again, that idea is worthy of consideration. I can report to the House that progress has already been made in expanding the visitors programme for schools and colleges run by the Parliamentary Education Unit. Former teachers have been recruited to develop outreach programmes with local education authorities and schools. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, that there is no reason why more Members of this House should not go out as part of a wider outreach programme. Indeed, I think that that will be something that the Information Office would be happy to do if the resources were available.
	The House has endorsed the recommendation for a new visitor centre. Construction is due to begin on-site in January next year and it is planned to complete the work by the time of the return of both Houses in October 2006. Again, that will offer a great opportunity to extend the wider interest in Parliament and its activities.
	I was not surprised to read in the Puttnam report that even seasoned journalists admitted to having difficulties finding their way around parliamentary documents. I think that we have all had that problem at some time or other. How many of us were baffled by the language and procedures when we first arrived in this place? How many of us have, over time, got used to them and stopped realising how strange they may sound to the outside world? The challenge for us must be to continue to view the language and procedures with outsiders' eyes—a point powerfully made by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves—and to seek to change them where it is needed. I emphasise, where it is needed—I am not advocating change for the sake of it. Our objective should be to make our language and procedures as transparent and as clear to the outside world as possible.
	I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, that tradition and history can lend our proceedings dignity and, indeed, a quirky charm. However, I think that we could be more rigorous in thinking about what works and what does not. I agree with my noble friend Lady Morris about the importance of considering change as a way of facing the future.
	Many noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Puttnam and the noble Lords, Lord Currie, Lord Norton of Louth, Lord Tyler, Lord Greaves and Lord McNally, talked about the importance of using new technology. An improved website to engage people, especially young people, and draw them into our work is achievable. I understand that plans for that are already under way. There is no reason why our website should not be interactive, looking outwards not inwards and drawing in views as well as putting out information. Many organisations, including other parliaments, already take advantage of new technology to reach people in new and innovative ways. This House could learn much from practices elsewhere.
	I should like to pick up on four final points—I may have lost count as I have been dealing with each point as I go through my speech. The first is accountability and our overall effectiveness as an organisation. I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Norton of Louth, Lord Jopling and Lord Tyler, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, and the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, who talked about the importance of the substance of what we do and communicating that to the public. My noble friend Lord Sawyer also talked about the importance of what we communicate.
	In response to the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, who keeps me on my toes with Questions for Written Answer, I agree that the Government need to improve but I remind him that, since 17 May this year, 2,068 Questions for Written Answer have been tabled and the majority have been answered. Sometimes in talking about a lack of accountability of government, Members of this House and the other place forget that, despite lapses in responding to Questions for Written Answer within 14 days, for example, the number of times that Ministers from this Government come to the Dispatch Box, give Statements about what we do and open ourselves up to scrutiny and accountability should be recognised. I am in no way saying that Members of the Opposition or the Cross Benches do not have a right to hold us more rigorously to account and to ask us why we have not done certain things within certain time frames. But I feel very strongly that part of the malaise that grips us about the way our Parliament works stems from how almost everything is used in party-political terms rather than in looking more broadly at enhancing our political institutions.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, mentioned the importance of government being more accessible and communicating more effectively. I feel that the Government have a track record of seeking the views of the public on policy issues. We have consulted them on a wide range of policy issues relevant to individuals in society, including GM crops, disability, sustainable development and NHS services. The House may not realise that earlier this year the Home Office launched a cross-departmental initiative called Together We Can, which commits the Government to help citizens to work with public bodies to set and achieve common goals. As part of that initiative there are specific plans to increase democratic participation by raising understanding of political processes. The Department for Constitutional Affairs, in partnership with the Hansard Society and the Association for Citizenship Teaching, has just commissioned the development of a teaching resource dedicated to explaining Parliament and its work, to be used in schools. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, who reminded the House that it was this Government who introduced citizenship teaching. He did it by reference to David Blunkett, but it is a reference that I will pick up because it is important to value the role that my right honourable friend played in that.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, mentioned that the explosion in methods of communication made it much harder for us as a parliament to communicate. I agree with that. But, even in recognising that, we have a responsibility to look at whether we can use those new and different methods to enhance our relationship to the wider public. A point about accessibility and security was made by my noble friend Lord Puttnam and the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury. I think that we are all agreed that while we have to be conscious of security, particularly given our responsibilities to staff who work here, we need to find the right balance between security and accessibility.
	I have to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, that I was a little surprised, because I felt her speech was slightly outside the spirit of our debate. I believe that Parliament and government have a common interest in strengthening post-legislative scrutiny. From the Government's point of view, it could help to ensure that our aims are delivered in practice and that the considerable resources devoted to legislation are committed to good effect. We have therefore been giving very close consideration to how post-legislative scrutiny can best be achieved. We have asked the Law Commission to undertake a study of the options. I have to say to the noble Baroness, who mentioned a whole raft of Bills, some of which are not even yet operative, that in order to carry out post-legislative scrutiny effectively it would be sensible to wait to see what impact those Bills have.
	In conclusion, the report rightly points out that clear political leadership is essential if change is to be achieved. The House authorities can assist us in providing opportunities for our work to become more accessible and open to the general public. But they are not responsible for those decisions and they cannot be the sole drivers for change. I would like to propose that we refer all the proposals made today to the relevant committees for consideration. I would be very happy to look back over the debate, consider the suggestions that have been made and perhaps place one or two sides of A4 in the Library making it clear to which committee each suggestion or recommendation has been referred.
	I was a little surprised that, at the same time as participants in the debate were extolling the importance of the independence of Parliament and that it was seen as separate from government, from the Executive, it is government who are being pressed to bring about the changes proposed in the report. If Parliament is to communicate effectively and engage fully with the public that it serves, the leadership must come from its Members. That is a challenge for all of us, collectively. It will require time, energy, co-operation and good will. If it is to happen, let us be honest with ourselves.
	The views expressed today do not necessarily reflect the views across this House. I have seen sensible proposals for change go no further because of a fear of change. That is part of the challenge that we face collectively as Members of this House. We have to be honest about that. There is no point in participants in this debate expecting me to deliver those changes. I am one individual and, sometimes, one lone voice on many of the committees on which I sit. It is sometimes a little peculiar to find that, as a member of the Government and a member of the Cabinet, I am the one making suggestions about the way in which this House can fully exercise its independence.
	The responsibility rests with noble Lords. It is a challenge, but I am sure that it is one to which all can rise.

Lord Puttnam: My Lords, first I thank my noble friend the Leader of the House for an incredibly constructive and honest summing up. I shall try to use the short time available to me as best I can.
	I want to pick up on something said by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox. The noble Baroness knows how fond I am of her, but she made a comment which stunned me momentarily, but now I see that she has done me an enormous favour. She suggested that I was in some way depreciating the framers of the Magna Carta. My instinctive reaction was to say that I was not, but on looking again I can see how that implication might be possible. She is right. I start my introduction to the report with the words, "We the people", and go on to quote:
	"Government of the People by the People for the People".
	It is probably entirely fair to say that the framers of the Magna Carta, Barons as they were, never seriously considered the concepts of "We the people" or "Government by the people for the people". That was just not within their frame of reference. The challenge we face is to make absolutely sure that, almost 1,000 years later, we are not from time to time guilty of making the same mistake.
	The noble Baroness made another legitimate point when she said that the report does not pay enough attention to the extraordinary amount of scrutinising work carried out in this House. The motto on our coat of arms should possibly read, "The devil is in the detail", but it would immediately be suggested that the motto should be in Plantagenet French, and a lot of its meaning would be lost.
	I join all noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley on her remarkable maiden speech. For five years my noble friend was my boss, and she was a terrific boss. If she is half as good a parliamentarian in this House as she was a joy to work for, I can promise noble Lords that we are all very lucky.
	I have a couple of quibbles. The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, suggested that membership of Select Committees is less than something sought after in another place. My experience is the exact opposite. I think that the pressure to get on to a Select Committee, certainly that exerted by newer Members of that House, is enormous. Perhaps things have changed over the years.
	My noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport said that satisfaction levels in the National Assembly for Wales were poor. We looked into this quite carefully and I am sure that he will be interested to know that while it is true that they started from a low base, year on year, things have been improving. That is not unconnected to the communications strategy that has been adopted by the Welsh Assembly. While I am sure there is room for improvement, this offers real hope too.
	My strongest criticism is reserved for myself. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, and I have had several conversations about the fact that not enough reference is made to the House of Lords in this report. A good psychologist would be able to explain this to me. I think that the reason is that I am so enormously proud, and sometimes even in awe, of the work done by the House that, surrounded as I was by colleagues with less understanding of it, I became too timorous and therefore did not push anything like hard enough in pressing the case for this House. I deeply regret that and I apologise to the House almost unreservedly.
	Along with other noble Lords, I also thank the Hansard Society. I should say to your Lordships that to go to breakfast with the noble Lord, Lord Holme, then to be asked to chair a committee, to say yes, and then to find that you have taken on a life's work is something all noble Lords should think twice about. I do not regret it for a moment. It has been one of the great pleasures of my life and my colleagues on the staff of the Hansard Society have been absolutely exemplary.
	I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, for referring to the chart on page 33 of the report. If noble Lords sensed a feeling of frustration in my opening remarks, this is where it lies. By any stretch of the imagination, the organisational structure of the two Houses is daft. It would have been nice had someone put up their hand and said, "You are right. It is one of those things which has just developed over the years. It makes no sense whatsoever and of course we are going to redo it". Not so. What actually happens is that the tin hats come on, rather lame justifications are made, and no one has yet said that the structure is a nonsense and will be changed. That may also be why we heard a certain frustration in the remarks of my noble friend Lord Gould of Brookwood, and in those of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. It is for this reason that we get frustrated. It is not because we want in any way to disparage the House or the people who work for it but because we constantly sense that really good ideas, thoughtful ideas—debates such as the one we have had today—end up going straight down some unknown drain into the River Thames. It is extremely frustrating.
	Perhaps I may make a couple of other small points. The noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, referred to television. She and I share a background. Please accept that, from our perspective, what goes on here in the way in which this House is projected to the outside world is utterly inexplicable. We are asking the television audience at home to watch something that they never see at any other time of their lives—no cutaway shots, no reaction shots, no close-ups. It is barmy—there is no possible justification for it—and I genuinely believe that it will change.
	Let me lastly pick up on the interesting point made by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, about the debate on Monday of last week on assisted dying. The noble Lord is absolutely right: it was well trailed over the weekend, it received a great deal of attention and an enormous number of letters were received. At the other end of the Corridor, the Civil Aviation Bill was being debated. I counted six Members present. But the debate that went out live was the one on the Civil Aviation Bill. Our debate was transmitted the following day. Why? It is not the BBC's fault. The BBC does not have the ability flexibly to schedule the output; it is our decision.
	At the nub of this is a real worry. If there is—and this may be what the Leader of the House was suggesting—such rigidity and rivalry between the two Houses that that kind of problem cannot be sorted out, then, my Lords, it is just possible that today's debate has been a fruitless exercise.
	I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate and I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Immigration (Provision of Physical Data) (Amendment) Regulations 2005

Lord Bassam of Brighton: rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 10 October be approved [5th Report from the Joint Committee].

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, these amending regulations are made in exercise of the powers conferred on the Secretary of State by Section 126 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. Section 126 enables the Secretary of State, by the making of the regulations, to require that an immigration application be accompanied by specified information about an external characteristic, or to enable an authorised person to require an entrant to provide information of this kind.
	Three sets of regulations have already been made under this power. The Immigration (Provision of Physical Data) Regulations 2003—known as the 2003 regulations—provided that an entry clearance application made in Sri Lanka was required to be accompanied by a record of the applicant's fingerprints. The Immigration (Provision of Physical Data) (Amendment) Regulations 2004—known as the 2004 regulations—extended that requirement to entry clearance applicants in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Tanzania and Uganda, and to those seeking leave to enter the UK who, upon doing so, present a 1951 refugee convention travel document issued by a country other than the United Kingdom. The Immigration (Provision of Physical Data) (Amendment) (No. 2) (Regulations) 2004 added Kenya and Rwanda to the list of countries affected by the regulations in order to supplement the efforts we were taking in east Africa to combat abuse of our immigration and asylum processes.
	The purpose of this statutory instrument is further to extend the power to collect fingerprint data from those applying for entry clearance to the UK to the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Netherlands and Vietnam.
	It also amends the meaning of the term "application" so that a 1951 convention travel document holder, if he or she is fingerprinted when making an application for entry clearance in a country to which the fingerprinting regulations apply, will not be fingerprinted a second time upon arrival in the United Kingdom.
	Results are encouraging from the countries that are covered by the previous regulations. The information collected under the 2003 and 2004 regulations is proving effective in revealing applicants who have sought to conceal an adverse immigration history from the entry clearance officer by using a false identity.
	The Government remain convinced that the greater use of biometric technology will support efforts to prevent document and identity fraud. It will enable those who have an entitlement to enter the United Kingdom to do so without hindrance while preventing those who seek to circumvent our controls doing so.
	We are committed to biometric fingerprint collection in all countries by 2008. I appreciate concerns over proportionality and data protection, but consider that the safeguards built into the regime, established in the 2003 and 2004 regulations, are adequate to address any such concerns. These safeguards are designed to deal with the collection of data and their subsequent use. With regard to data collection, any applicant who is under 16 years of age will have their fingerprints taken only in the presence of a responsible adult who is over 18 years old and not employed by the United Kingdom Government.
	Turning to data usage, fingerprints collected in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Netherlands and Vietnam will be added to the immigrant and asylum fingerprint system database. That will allow for the identification of any visa applicant who subsequently makes either an asylum or immigration application in a different identity. This, in turn, will help establish the nationality of those who no longer have a basis on which to remain in the United Kingdom and so assist with securing their removal. In common with other fingerprints collected in respect of immigration and asylum applications, data will be shared with the police and other law enforcement agencies in the prevention or investigation of crime. All such exchanges will be in compliance with the relevant data protection provisions. In terms of data retention, Regulations 7 and 8 of the 2003 regulations require these records to be retained for a maximum of 10 years, after which period they are destroyed.
	Any entry clearance application which is not accompanied by the necessary fingerprint data may be treated as invalid. There may be exceptions, including applicants who, because of physical disability or injury, cannot provide a record of their fingerprints. However, it is anticipated that the majority of applications that are not accompanied by a record of fingerprints will be treated as invalid. As with all entry clearance applications, regardless of whether the regulations apply to them, if an application is incomplete it may be treated as invalid, and the applicant will enjoy no right of appeal. The system will be operated in a reasonable way, however, to limit the impact on applicants. I commend the regulations to your Lordships' House.
	Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 10 October be approved [5th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Bassam of Brighton.)

Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that comprehensive explanation. Anything that assists in the prevention of identity fraud, particularly with regard to the changing of identity once entry has been secured with a view to asylum application, is to be welcomed. I am pleased about the provisions of the 2003 regulations with regard to minors, to which the Minister referred, and to the destruction of documents. I am also pleased that British subjects and Commonwealth citizens who have a right of abode here have slightly preferential treatment in that their records have to be destroyed as soon as possible. We support this measure.

Lord Addington: My Lords, we have no objection to this measure.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am glad of the overwhelming support for the regulations.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Tourism

Lord Clement-Jones: rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what action they are taking to ensure that their policies reflect the value of tourism and travel to the British economy.
	My Lords, tourism is one of the UK's largest industries. Measured by conventional accounting as an industry, it is said to represent some 3.9 per cent of the UK economy, and its value is in the region of £75 billion. It accounts for an estimated 1.4 million jobs in the United Kingdom, which is about 5 per cent of all people in employment. Therefore, it employs more people than are employed in construction or transport.
	However, using what is called tourism satellite accounting, which has been developed over recent years by the World Travel and Tourism Council, shows that the tourism economy has an even greater role. This includes all aspects of travel and tourism demand, personal and business consumption, capital investment and government spending and exports. On this basis, it represents some £185 billion in income generated and some 2.8 million jobs, or 10 per cent of the UK economy.
	I know that that percentage will surprise many people who are unaware of the important role that tourism plays in the UK economy. This means that neither the Government nor the industry are fully analysing and communicating the benefits that tourism brings to the United Kingdom. Good information is crucial to making good decisions. Economic tourism information is notoriously hard to come by. Do the Government accept that they now need consistently to adopt tourism satellite accounting in measuring the importance of this sector? Last year a record 27.8 million visitors came to the UK, representing a 12 per cent increase on the previous year. There was also an increase of 1 per cent in visitor numbers to visitor attractions over the previous year. The projects funded by the National Lottery have made a huge difference in the past few years. I want to see this trend in growth continue and for the Government to do all that they can to encourage that growth.
	There are, however, clouds on the horizon. It has been reported that tourism income is down on original forecasts by some £500 million in London, largely from domestic visitors because of the July terrorist attacks. There is also a large and growing deficit estimated at some £17 billion between expenditure by those going overseas on holiday and those coming here. There are changing patterns in consumption. People do not just take one long holiday a year any more. There are increased short breaks, late bookings are increasingly the norm and international and domestic visitors alike are more demanding.
	There are some important issues to address. First, there is the issue of promotional structures in the UK. Since the original Tomorrow's Tourism strategy was published in 1999, there have been some welcome developments. Indeed, there are some good elements in the government strategy document for 2004, Tomorrow's Tourism Today. Devolution for Scotland and Wales and greatly increased funding for Visit Scotland and the Wales Tourist Board from the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly have dramatically increased tourism to those areas, both with an increase in visitor numbers and in spending. Meanwhile, Visit Britain—which was formed in 2003 to promote Britain overseas as a tourism destination and to lead and co-ordinate the domestic marketing of England, and which does some brilliant work, as the interim report of the Tourism Review and Implementation Group demonstrated—has seen its support from the Government remain static for two years and now has the prospect of it being frozen for a further three. If the Government are serious in recognising the importance of tourism to the British economy they should budget for a real increase in marketing and promotional investment.
	The Government also need to learn lessons from Scotland and Wales. Regrettably, there is no Visit England body. There is only a Marketing Advisory Board for England. Regional development agencies and the Mayor of London, through Visit London, are meant to take the strategic lead on tourism policy in England. Some of them have retained or set up regional tourist boards, as the TRIG report makes clear. But without a central body specifically for England, it is crucial that these RDAs improve their co-ordination in relation to tourism policy in order to ensure success, both with other RDAs and with their local partners, and that they treat tourism as a priority. What are the Government doing to assist in that respect?
	A key part of the national tourism strategy must be to attract visitors from new markets. Eighty-four per cent of visitors coming to Britain are from the original EU 15 plus Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, the US, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. But future growth potential is expected to come from markets such as India, China, south-east Asia, Russia and Eastern Europe. Visitors from China to the UK, for example, doubled between 1999 and 2004 and expenditure more than trebled the 1999 expenditure figure. There are currently some 28 million Chinese who travel internationally and these numbers are expected to grow to over 100 million in the next decade or so now that Britain has approved destination status.
	It must be our priority to develop these emerging markets and I very much welcome the launch of the Britain Welcomes China initiative earlier this year. I also welcome the fact that Visit Britain's focus on international marketing efforts has accordingly been shifted to these emerging and growth markets. However, support from the Government and Parliament is crucial to ensure the success of that strategy. What measures of support are the Government proposing? If they are serious about recognising the importance of tourism to the British economy, they should be budgeting for more pan-Britain funding for overseas tourism promotion, especially in those new and emerging markets.
	Due to the shortness of time I shall, sadly, not be able to go into great detail on the issues of quality, value for money, welcome and skills, but visitors to the UK should know what to expect when they book a rated hotel, regardless of what scheme it is in or in what region it is located. I welcome moves towards a single scheme, but participation in a grading scheme still appears inadequate. The Government should clearly lead by example and ensure that official bookings are made only with assessed accommodation. I should like to hear from the Minister what moves are being made in that respect.
	On the issue of regulation, industry and many of the trade bodies are actively engaged, both at EU and UK level, in putting their case for measured deregulation. I welcome the initiative of James Purnell, the Minister, at the fourth annual European tourism forum, in announcing that a DCMS better regulation panel will look at tourism first. We have had conferences during the UK presidency of the EU on this subject, and both Mr Barroso—himself a former tourism Minister—and vice-president Verheugen have made a point of emphasising the need for deregulation. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The deregulation task force under the last Conservative government and this Government's Better Regulation Task Force have laboured mightily in the vineyard, but what specifically have they come up with of benefit to the tourism industry? Will we have to wait for a better regulation Bill to become law before any legislation can be changed? If so, what does the Minister anticipate the timetable to be? We particularly need deregulation and a common platform as it affects e-business and the tourism industry.
	The Minister, James Purnell, has placed great emphasis on EnglandNet developed by VisitBritain, which is intending to create a "virtual high street" of Britain's tourism products on line. We very much welcome the emphasis being given to that.
	On the issue of visas, given that tourism is so vital to the British economy, why have the Government allowed the cost of tourist visas to increase dramatically this year, with a typical tourist visa to the UK costing up to £65, compared to about £27 to visit all the 15 European countries operating under the Schengen agreement. I am surprised and greatly concerned that such a disincentive should be allowed to hinder UK tourism. That is a classic example of a lack of joined-up government, with the DCMS not being consulted by the Home Office on that matter.
	Finally, on the Olympics, the tourism potential for the 2012 Olympics is enormous. The games should prove a long-term boost to business tourism in particular, as winning the bid demonstrates that the UK is well placed to host major events, exhibitions and trade fairs as well as conventions and conferences. The London Olympics genuinely represents the opportunity of a generation, but we need to learn from the experiences of Sydney and Athens. The hoped-for benefits for London and the UK are by no means a given. What are the Government doing to ensure that the required leadership resources and preplanning are in place to create the Olympics legacy for tourism? The strategic key to secure that legacy must be full alignment and good channels of communication between the London organising committee and all those bodies involved in tourism delivery and promotion. They must also receive sufficient funding to be up to the task.
	I have not even touched upon the issue of sustainable tourism, the future of aviation, greenhouse gas emissions, the needs of the disabled in tourism and many other matters of great importance to the tourism industry. Until recently, Britain ranked sixth in the international tourism earnings league; now it has slipped to seventh. I want to see the UK move up from that ranking, but to do that we need to tackle some of the issues that I have raised. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

Lord Greaves: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones for asking this Unstarred Question so that we can debate these important matters. I want to concentrate on a sector of this country's tourist industry that is often not even thought of as part of that industry: mountain walking, climbing and other adventure sports. That sector contributes a substantial amount, particularly to the rural economy and to economies of the areas where those recreations take place. I remind the House of my interest as a member of the access and conservation committee of the British Mountaineering Council.
	Important and useful reports in recent years have produced a lot of valuable information. Among the findings of a report in September 2003 for the Ramblers Association, from Dr Mike Christie and Jon Matthews, were that there were in the region of 188,000 kilometres of off-road rights of way in this country, and 36,000 kilometres of those were long-distance paths where people could go and walk for a day or a week. Obviously, there are many shorter, locally promoted paths: in Pendle in Lancashire, where I live, we have the Pendle Way, as well as the Brontë Way, which links us with Haworth over the moors into Yorkshire. There is also the Ferndean Way, along the beck in my valley. That is linked with Wycoller, which also has Brontë links, such as Ferndean Manor. Including the land that has been opened by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act, there is something like a million hectares of open access land. All those figures refer to England, not Wales or Scotland, which are huge resources for such activities.
	An estimated 527 million walking trips are made annually to the English countryside, a huge amount of activity that is beneficial to those taking part in it, both psychologically and in other ways relating to their health. The expenditure associated with such trips is in the region of £6.14 billion each year. By and large, it involves a lot of small businesses, but added together it is big businesses. The income generated from that expenditure is estimated to be over half as much again: between £1.473 billion and £2.763 billion, supporting 200,000 to 250,000 full-time equivalent jobs. So this is important.
	It is estimated that there are 5,204 million day visits each year in the UK, and that 15 per cent of those are for hill-walking and rambling. That does not include other outdoor sports activities, such as mountaineering and climbing. About a quarter of people had visited a national park in the survey period, corresponding to 11.4 million visits, which shows the huge importance of those parks. Work by Scottish Natural Heritage in 1998 suggested that walking contributed £257 million to the economy in Scotland, the equivalent of 9,400 full-time jobs. If mountaineering is included, that rises to £361 million and 13,350 jobs. There is much more similar information. All the spending in those areas has multiplier effects on the local economies, and the actual effect of it is much greater than the direct spending.
	I have one further statistic: Snowdonia Active's study of adventure tourism in north-west Wales in 2004 suggested that the contribution to the economy of adventure activities was £140 million, of which £60 million was in the national park, with the employment of 8,450 people—6 per cent of employment in that region. So we are talking about an important contribution to the economy.
	There are several things that we now need to look at. One of them follows on from what my noble friend said about the need for a more co-ordinated effort to attract tourists, certainly in England but also more generally. There is not a great deal of promotion of mountaineering, hill walking and walking as activities for people who do not live in this country. Most of the people who take part in those activities in this country are resident here and many of them take part in them on a day basis. Our superb mountains constitute a vast resource. They are very different from European mountains in many respects but are not necessarily less attractive. Some of us would say that they are more attractive in some ways. They offer a great opportunity to attract more overseas visitors on organised trips and overseas visitors travelling independently. Far more people from this country go climbing and walking in places such as the Alps, the Pyrenees and many other parts of Europe than come from Europe to this country to do so. There is scope for changing the balance in that regard.
	One of the recommendations in the Christie and Matthews report was more research into the economic value of the social benefits, health-related and spiritual—or, as I would say, psychological benefits—associated with walking. That might produce evidence to convince the Government that more public resources should be put into the national parks, local authorities and voluntary organisations that carry out work that makes such activities more attractive and easier to undertake, such as footpath improvement, improvement of access, improvement of access for disabled people where appropriate, signposting and promotion. In addition to footpaths, new access land was opened under the CROW Act. Some local authorities are signposting very well, but others are not signposting quite so well. Further resources may be needed for that, as we discussed in an Unstarred Question a fortnight ago.
	I finish with a local angle. I live in a part of the country that is typical of many old industrial areas, smaller towns and industrial villages on the edge of uplands and in valleys in the uplands. There are many in Wales. There are certainly many in the north of England. Those areas have suffered economically because the staple industries on which they depended have declined and have almost disappeared in many cases. Fifty years ago, cotton weaving was the dominant local industry in our area, but now it hardly exists. Such areas have had difficulties in adjusting economically, and tourism has a real role to play. It will never be the dominant local industry, but many communities, particularly those such as Nelson and Colne where I live, are located in valleys in the middle of extremely beautiful countryside. In many cases, that has been recognised only relatively recently, as the pollution and the difficulties associated with the old industrial towns have been cleared up only recently. I am talking about the past 20 or 30 years. The Minister will know exactly what I am talking about and exactly the kind of areas that I am talking about.
	Promotion of the kind of tourism that I am discussing—walking and outdoor activities—in those areas can go easily hand-in-hand with other interests such as bird watching and other conservation interests on the moors and in the valleys and with the industrial heritage. Thirty years ago, when my wife and I served on the local authority and said that we should conserve some of the mill chimneys, many of the councillors laughed and hooted at us. They thought that we were crackers. We may have been crackers—we may still be crackers; that is for other people to judge—but everyone now is very keen to keep the few remaining mill chimneys. They are seen as part of our industrial heritage. In economic terms we can to a small but significant extent use our industrial heritage to promote an area by telling the relevant tales and providing narratives for tourists. In many cases, such as the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, that fits together nicely with outdoor activities such as walking and cycling. Outdoor activities have an important economic role to play, as well as all their other roles, and all of us involved in those areas would like the Government to consider that and perhaps pay a little more attention to outdoor activities and provide a few more resources for them.

Lord Addington: My Lords, I am the third Liberal Democrat speaker, and whether I am the third wise monkey or part of a triumvirate remains to be seen. I shall try to confine my remarks to one of the main problems with tourism in this country: getting information out to visitors about what we have to offer. The visitors might come from the locality itself, just up the road, or from abroad. The network of tourist information centres throughout the country should be the first port of call for anyone looking for information about what is on offer in this country. I have been led to believe that they are under threat because local authorities do not have to give them money. They need money to get the information out there. They are not a mandatory service.
	The reason why they are so important was hinted at in the speech made by my noble friend Lord Greaves. Tourism in this country is not passive or contained. If you are going on a beach holiday, you do not go to Britain. You do not get constant sunshine where you can slob out, have a drink, have a meal just down the road and walk back again. You cannot guarantee the weather for that relaxing time of not worrying about doing anything. A degree of activity is required to be a tourist in this country.
	My noble friend at times painted an intimidating picture of going on holiday and marching up and down hills. I was brought up in East Anglia, where walking is a rather more gentle pursuit, because the best we can do there is rolling countryside. Where I currently live, on the Berkshire/Wiltshire border, we have real hills, but I do not know whether they are up to the standard that my noble friend is used to. That is very much a part of British tourism. It is easy enough to find out where the trails are if you are slightly informed. The real thing that backs up the whole process is where you stay, where you eat and where you go for your little trip out halfway through.
	In this country you have to be active, and there is a lot to see. There is historical built environment everywhere. Where I come from in East Anglia we have the great houses of the land magnates of the early 18th century who first decided that industrial agriculture could really pay, and to show off how much it paid they built huge houses. On other occasions, Members of your Lordships' House would say how difficult that was once things like global trade and trade coming from across the Atlantic took away the money bases, but the houses are there. Other types of built environment with a historical basis are in other parts of the country. Indeed, industrial heritage tourism is a growing attraction for many people. All of those are there, but they are complicated; you need to have information to find them. You need to know how you can integrate the activities. You need to know what you can do that brings everything together so you have a series of things to do.
	The big cities have a huge advantage, especially the historic ones. Even in London it is a fairly brisk walk between most of the big attractions in the centre. The simple reason is that when they designed the city they had no choice; you had to be able to walk across large parts of it. It breaks down slightly because the city has become so big, but most other cities, for example my home city of Norwich, the city centre is compact, because it had to be. That is nothing unusual, so those cities will do well for our purposes. When you go out to smaller communities that are either connected by a walk or a short drive, you need information to find the interesting bits and the local attractions. It is all about information. Unless we give more emphasis to finding out what is there we are going to miss a trick.
	There have been several suggestions about how we do that. One is simply to push more money in from the local authorities. If I suggest that, I am sure that there will be an armed posse waiting for me outside from my own party, let alone any others. More money could be called for from the Government; then again, someone can always coffin wave about some of the other things on which I am keen, such as disability rights. Are we going to use the private sector? That sounds attractive, but if you subscribe to a service and it has to tell people where competitors are as well, are you going to buy in? That is an important factor. If only those who buy in are allowed to provide the service, is it worth consulting?
	I put that forward as a situation in which the answer is core funding from some form of government, with some regulation to make sure that advice is to a degree impartial. I do so because I had the experience at a conference recently of phoning somewhere and, when I asked for some information that was not to do with that booking agency, I was told that it was thought that the place would soon close. More details can be provided outside the Chamber, as I have not warned those people, but saying that is a bad example of, "When you buy in, you own".
	Will we allow such information to be pushed forward better? Do the Government have a vision of a network where we will always be able to find some information about local areas? It would have to reflect the character of a local area and show a degree of local knowledge and training. Somebody from it should always be able to guarantee that I will get the right information for my needs. Simply having a good website will not do. If you do not know what is on offer, you probably do not even know which box to start ticking. If it is something of which you have not heard—if you do not know that there is a local history of museums, or of cloth production in the north of England if you come from the south—you will miss it, so we need people manning the network who can guide you through at least the start of the process.
	If the Government will take the matter on board, they must set standards and provide some form of funding or regulatory framework. If they do not, we will simply underutilise many of our assets and leave many people who would like to pay visits to places in this country booking the next flight abroad, where they know that they can get either a very passive holiday or at least something different—something that their neighbours have not seen.

Lord Luke: My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for introducing the debate. It is a most important subject that, in one form or another, we debate frequently. However, I hope that we will not debate it late on a Thursday evening again. We have to congratulate the Liberal Democrats on turning up in strength. I thought that I had a supporter, but he is gone; the Minister is not doing terribly well either. Seriously, it does not do any good to the reputation of this House to debate such an important matter in such poor circumstances. Your Lordships will, I hope, forgive me if I hark back to past debates, some of which have been effective and prompted action, and some of which have not.
	Tourism, as noble Lords have said, is a massive industry—the fourth largest in the country, employing more than 2 million people and composed of 107,000 separate businesses, mostly turning over less than £250,000 per annum. It is pretty remarkable how well this great industry has learnt to pull itself together, tie a knot and carry on after the successive crises of foot and mouth, SARS, September 11 and July in London this year. As we have heard, it has been estimated that the terrorist attacks in July have caused a loss of somewhere around £750 million to the industry as a whole—domestic and incoming—with £500 million of that incurred in London. Nevertheless, it is expected that more incoming tourists will come to Britain in 2005 than 2004. That says something about the resilience of the industry. Despite that, it sometimes seems to be the forgotten industry, which is extraordinary considering that it is worth approximately £75 billion per annum and generates 4.5 per cent of gross domestic product. Not only does it not apparently merit a government department to administer and assist it; it does not even figure in the name of the department that does look after it.
	Numerous bodies play a role in promoting tourism in Britain and one is tempted to wonder whether there are too many. For example, the regional development agencies have recently been required to formulate strategic tourist policies in their regions and also to fund the regional tourist boards. Why are they both involved in promoting tourism? Surely scarce resources would be better used if the effort was from one body, which would be more effective. I suggest that the Government do a U-turn and restore the RTBs to the job they were set up to do. They should be made responsible for developing strategy in their regions as well as carrying out that strategy. In recent years, tourism's sponsoring department has moved from the DTI, to employment, and then to national heritage—which became DCMS. Does that not point to indecision by government regarding tourism? I believe there is a current impetus towards returning it to the DTI. Does the Minister have anything to say about that?
	Some 70 per cent of all tourists coming into this country come to London. Some, particularly those on package tours, will also visit the home counties, Cambridge, Stratford, Bath, Oxford, and Windsor and sometimes Scotland—although many will fly directly to Scotland—but, inevitably, a large majority of them stay in London. Hence, the London attractions—especially heritage sites such as Parliament, the Tower, the Eye, Buckingham Palace, museums, galleries, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, and of course the River Thames itself—are, and always must be, the paramount consideration in marketing Britain abroad. It is, however, a great pity that traffic congestion in London is such a deterrent to tourists. This afternoon, I saw 16 buses stretching one after the other down Haymarket and around to Trafalgar Square. As far as I could see they were all nearly empty. Whose job is it to regulate them according to demand? Or is that a dirty word, like "car"? And whose job is it to clear up litter and other detritus scattered across London? As anyone can see, I do not think that it is overstating the case to say that London is the dirtiest capital city in Europe.
	There are considerable opportunities to market London in the next few years—the Olympics, for instance. The pledge by the hospitality industry to provide 30,000 hotel rooms at competitive prices had a lot to do with winning with our bid for the 2012 Olympics. With regard to rest of Britain, outside London, I am sure that more could be made of our wonderful cathedrals. I shall not provide a list as all noble Lords present will know where they are. Some of them have been featured in the current wave of historical series on television. That also should have a considerable influence on domestic tourism. The attractions of Liverpool, as 2008 European City of Culture, should do a lot for the north-west.
	I make a plea to the Government to encourage riparian authorities to follow up some of the good work done in recent years on improving facilities beside and on the River Thames. Exactly eight years ago, I had an Unstarred Question, asking the Government to give much greater attention to our great river and how many more tourists could use it to visit the many heritage sites which are adjacent to this river. The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, spoke for the Government then, and he is an enthusiastic supporter of greater use of the River Thames. I am sorry that he is not in his place today. We miss him and hope to see him back soon.
	One of the great issues at that time was the forthcoming Millennium celebrations and the Millennium Dome. There were many suggestions about how to maximise the number of visitors to the Dome. For instance, there was a suggestion for a new river bridge east of Greenwich, a new deep-water quay for tourist liners at Greenwich and mammoth car parks—one north and one south of the river—within easy distance of the M25, linked to the Dome by 20 minute shuttle boats. None of those enterprising ideas was carried out and, because of that and other reasons which I shall not go into, the Dome never remotely achieved its potential. However, all these projects could be most helpful in encouraging both incoming and domestic tourism, to and up the Thames. Has any consideration been given to reviving any of these ideas to improve access, particularly for the Olympic Games, when we shall be expecting many incoming visitors?
	The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, mentioned the question of fees for visas. I thoroughly agree with what he said—it is disgraceful.
	Tourism can, and should, be one of the main leaders of regeneration of coastal resorts, but, to take full advantage of the possibilities, much expenditure will have to be faced to improve access. I remind the Minister that there are some 29 million car owners in this country. If it is government policy to encourage British people to take holidays at home rather than going abroad, the drivers will have to be accommodated and—dare I say it?—encouraged. People buy cars for several different reasons, and one of the strongest is the urge to take the family on holiday. I am sure that if it were made easier and more convenient, many more car-owning families would choose to holiday in Britain. I am aware that I am probably the only person here who would agree with that sentiment.
	Many hotels—I speak from experience—could transform their bedrooms and public rooms if, instead of spending money on, in many cases, indifferent prints, they acquired original oils and watercolours. Here, I state an interest as a dealer in watercolours. Originals have a way of increasing the feeling of quality in accommodation.
	Much is right about the tourist industry. As I said, it is brilliantly organised and extremely good at overcoming hazards. It is poised and ready to expand if demand is there. Effective advertising and marketing plays a vital role in that. Do the Government have any plans to increase grant aid? I look forward to hearing the Minister's response.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for his introduction to this topic. I also regret that it is at the end of a Thursday afternoon, but we are used to having regular debates on tourism and therefore I am sure that either he or another noble Lord will arrange a further debate in due course. Each debate gives us a chance to update developments and consider fresh issues.
	I shall deal with just one canard. I do not know whether it escaped the Opposition's notice but there was a general election in May, and the appointment of Ministers to departments at that time was unlikely to presage the disappearance of any department within three or six months. During the summer it was being canvassed that the DTI was about to go. Now the noble Lord suggests not that the DTI will go but that the DTI will pick up tourism from the DCMS. I can only say that these are strange rumours in the ether and they should be counted as such. There is no substance to them whatever, so the noble Lord can rest assured that he will be debating tourism issues for the foreseeable future with a representative from the DCMS, where tourism is to be located.
	I heard the noble Lord's point about congestion. On the whole, I think that the proliferation of buses in the capital city is a very good sign. I recognise that at times it may be thought that a rather large number are in one place. They are not causing too much congestion in dedicated bus lanes, which are present in the street that the noble Lord mentioned. Also, the availability of good public transport is an absolutely essential part of encouraging tourism. It is also an important component of the Olympic bid. The noble Lord is right to emphasise that we need to consider other aspects of public transport, such as the increased use of the river, with a view to enhancing the position for 2012. I emphasise that the increase in the number of buses in London is for the Londoner, for the tourists who visit London from within the UK and, of course, for overseas visitors who often rate the humble London bus as one of the key features that they appreciate.
	On the general issues that have come forward, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, was kind enough to recognise and appreciate that tourism in this country took a savage dip in London in July. We all recognise the reasons for that and there is no point in camouflaging that. It had a short-term, severely detrimental effect on tourism. In the wake of the disastrous events in July, it was not so much that people from abroad or from other parts of the United Kingdom failed to come to London as that people from outer London and the Home Counties failed to come. They are important to the use of facilities in London, particularly at half-term when children go to all the sights that everyone knows and loves. It is clear that those very sights have seen a significant decline. That market was severely hit when people exercised a choice to go to theme parks outside London rather than into the centre of the city. I have no doubt that we shall see a recovery and, in some respects, recovery is already markedly on its way. There is no point in gainsaying the damage that was caused over that short period of time.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, emphasised, tourism is a spectacularly important and impressive industry. I am not sure that I can go all the way with him on his figures, but I can go with him on the concept; namely, the Government are certainly prepared to ensure that tourism satellite accounting operates. We are using those figures. The only difficulty is that I did not recognise the figure that he quoted, as ours is rather more modest. Calculations in regard to tourism are notoriously difficult. We are placing a great deal of attention on that. We need to improve our tourism statistics and data for the development of the industry. On his idea of the concept we should adopt, I can assure him that we are already in favour of that and are using it. Improvements will be attendant on that development.
	The noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Addington, emphasised the issue of regional development agencies. We are in discussions with them on improving statistics and we recognise the important role that they play in tourism. There is no doubt that we need a devolved model. I accept the contributions to this debate that emphasise that tourism is marketed well when it is marketed locally and pays attention to the features of the area. I appreciate the wonderful description of the delights of more modest tourism by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. It is more modest in economic effects because hikers and mountaineers are not consumers of huge resources in quite the same way as other tourists.

Lord Greaves: My Lords, the Minister should see the hardware and equipment that climbers have nowadays. It is all highly technical and highly expensive.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, a friend of mine runs a hiking and mountaineering shop so I have no doubt about that. Although that is an important growth area in the market, it is measured more by British and overseas populations' appreciation of our wonderful scenery, glorious mountains and countryside. Walking may play a more modest part in the overall statistics because it is one of the least expensive countryside pursuits. I appreciated the noble Lord's point. Walking is an important part of tourism marketing in this country. We never talk about an area of England in more positive terms than the Lake District, which is one of our primary walking areas. Scotland's tourism also depends a great deal on it. I was grateful to the noble Lord for making the point and he rightly indicated that he would receive a warm response from me for that particular dimension of the tourist industry.
	I emphasise that our figure of £74.2 billion received from tourism is colossal but the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, gave a significantly higher figure. However, I am only too happy to comply with his analysis that we need to recognise the importance of tourism to our economy. The problem is, as we all recognise, that it is an extraordinarily difficult industry to organise, develop and support. There are so many various components, trends and contributors. In governmental terms, when it comes down to directing resources, it is a significant challenge.
	Tourism impacts on so many features of our national life; on our transport, on our environment, and on our rural and cultural agendas. It is not therefore to be calculated only as a generator of wealth. We value these features intrinsically for our own enjoyment and that of our fellow citizens. At the same time, we recognise that they produce significant additions for the national economy.
	I concur with the proposition behind the debate: that we need to place a greater emphasis on tourism. The Government are doing just that. We are concerned to bring pressure to bear wherever we can. On providing information, we have greatly appreciated the development of EnglandNet because it is critical to ensure that information is available to the intending visitor. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, made the case even more extensively—or intensively, perhaps—than his noble friend. Of course we accept that proposition and we are concerned that there are resources to support it.
	We were pleased to see the progress being made on the grading of accommodation. There is no doubt that for any tourist, the most crucial information is an assurance about the kind of accommodation they contract for and a guarantee of the accuracy of its description. The industry has made significant strides on that during the past 18 months. The Government are playing their full part in supporting that development and it will be recognised that it is an important element in ensuring that foreign visitors and our own internal tourist traffic receive good value for money and accurate information.
	Noble Lords dealt with other important opportunities for tourism. As the President of China is visiting this country next week, it is right that within the debate some emphasis is placed on the potential market from China. We all recognise the significant opportunity which China offers to a whole range of economic activity and tourism is clearly one of those.
	So I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, who mentioned China, that we have been working on the issue for the past year. We have been very concerned that, through the Foreign Office and other agencies, we establish confidence in China that visits to Britain can be conducted with enormous rewards to Chinese citizens who are prepared to come here and that we have great resources to offer to give support to such visits.
	The noble Lord, Lord Luke, said that we could cross-reference to a previous debate. I was grateful for his reference to my noble friend Lord McIntosh, who was certainly very committed to the issues on the half of the country but who always showed a particular interest in London issues, as would be expected from someone who played a prominent part on the old GLC.
	All debates on tourism from now on will include the new dimension that, in 2012, London will be the Olympic city. That provides the most enormous opportunity for us. We project that the economic benefits could be as high as £2 billion. That will not come easy. I heard what the noble Lord said: that we should learn from Athens and Sydney. We are learning from both. As he will know, we had close associations with Sydney in certain aspects of the preparation of the bid. There are lessons to learn from Atlanta as well, which is the most obvious disaster in recent years in Olympic Games. Of course we are working on that. I think that the noble Lord will recognise that we have already established a structure for the development of the Olympic bid in which the Government will play a critical role. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State will chair the overall body, but the bid is London's bid and a great deal of the work must be done by London.
	I emphasise that we do not expect the Games to fall readily into our lap. Experience of inadequate planning and foresight for the Games has led to a whole range of disasters. In particular, the issue that causes so much concern is when facilities have been created for an Olympic Games and, six months later, are derelict and unused because they have been so badly planned for future usage and benefit to the community. The strength of the London bid was its inheritance and heritage. From the Games will come such enormously enhanced facilities very close to—inside—the capital city.

Lord Luke: My Lords, I intervene simply to say that the word is legacy.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. I was struggling and I am extremely grateful for his contribution. I hope that Hansard will attribute to him the correct English at that point. As ever, I am in his debt.
	I assure the House that from the initiatives and support that the Government are offering to tourism, we will have a rich legacy in the immediate future as well as when we get to 2012 and the Olympic Games. There is much to be done. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, was right in his analysis of how the disparate parts require a great deal of enhanced cohesion. That means that there is a role for government in bringing people together for clear objectives. We are putting extra money into tourism, although not at the level that the noble Lord would want. His proposals form a package that, at a rapid calculation, would probably cost between £10 million and £15 million. We cannot produce money quite like that out of the hat, but we have devoted an extra £2 million to tourism this year for aspects of co-ordination and development. If the noble Lord's intention was to ensure that tourism was a clear priority for my department—I emphasise that it is a continuing priority—I want to give him that reassurance.

Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I am grateful for his massively reassuring remarks, but he has not dealt with the frozen nature of the grants-in-aid to VisitBritain for the next three years, which belies quite a lot of what he said.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I indicated the areas in which we had been able to allocate additional resources to the benefit of tourism. I understand what the noble Lord is saying: he is calling down resources, which is much easier from the opposition Benches, particularly the Liberal Benches, than it is for government. A debate of this kind has the advantage of increasing pressure on government to look closely at whether money is spent fruitfully. We recognise the significance of tourism, and the noble Lord can rest assured that my department will continue to give it a high priority.

House adjourned at six minutes past six o'clock.